Howling at the Moon
by Arkenn
Summary: Young Grimm are reckless, Old Grimm are cautious, Ancient Grimm learn. The White Wolf among beowolves has lived its life in fear of the creations of man, and now has a chance to learn of the properties of dust, blade, and machines. This is the story about the exploits of a beast, not the triumphs of man.
1. Observations

**This Fanfic begins during the events of episode 11, and continues from there.**

There was barely the rustling of leaves as the pack of beowolves slunk through the greenery. The thick underbrush clotted the animal paths between the trees forcing the grimm to slide through the thin spaces to keep quiet. They had been tracking for three days now since the anger of several faunus had rolled over the hills into their traditional territory, and despite the hesitance of the pack leader they were making their way to the source.

The young were salivating as they closed the distance to the outside of the deserted Vale settlement. It was supposedly empty though a scout sent ahead of the pack confirmed that somewhere within area there was a congregation of man. Many men.

The scout had returned hours ago, though, and as the black forms entered into a clearing the leader let out a harsh growl forcing the rest to a stop. They waited.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three.

_Boom_.

The ground immediately in front of the pack fell inwards and the grimm were forced to leap away from the edge as soil slid into the sinkhole. Immediately the surroundings were awash with the most intense anger and despair, the battle in the train tunnels below echoing up through the hole and setting the jaws of each wolf slightly open.

Air escaped from the tunnel and the pack leader could smell the scent of man, several of them, as well as the poison dust being expended. There were several children of man, or so it could tell, though despite a warning growl the rest of its pack had leapt down into the dark abyss with bloodlust in their eyes. They were in the hold of instinct, and within seconds the lone beowolf standing on the edge was the pack leader.

Disgust curled the lip of the white-and-red grimm, teeth baring as it snarled in anger. It could sense the foolishness of the deed. This was hardly some caravanning troupe making the mistake of crossing into their territory, this was the scent of weapons, of fire, of dust. These scents were danger, they were the means of war, the man's barricade against tooth and claw.

Fear wafted up from the crevasse, and though the old beowolf knew better than to test its luck the short descent and speed with which it found the destroyed mech made these reservations flee. Bloodlust brought the hound to the cockpit of one of Torchwick's paladins, and after finding where the trapped faunus must have been protected the grimm let out a long howl.

Then, quietly it curled claws under sections of armor and with great heaves tore the metal from the frame of the mechanical beast. Searching, sniffing after a short minute it had pried the faunus from the metal cage.

Dead.

Without care for the body the Grimm tossed the man aside and more closely inspected the wreckage of the paladin. The metal was thick but malleable, and after pulling on the armor covering the shoulder for a few seconds the metal gave way. More investigation found dust residue near the guns, telling the wolf where the dangerous regions of the mech were.

Once the curiosity was sated the beast hauled its armored frame off of the paladin and after pulling itself straight off the ground to its full eight foot height it could hear the sounds of other grimm pouring into the tunnel and sprinting in the direction of a great clamour. After giving one last look to the faunus the leader sprinted down the tunnel on all fours. The throng of different grimm slowed it down as the mass of murderous wolves, bears and hogs scrambled towards their feast.

Slowing for a moment the beowolf hopped onto its rear paws and peered down the tunnel as the train approached the barrier which kept the tunnel sealed off from Vale. Red eyes narrowed as swift boarbatusks closed in on the final carriage in the row.

Right as the first grimm approached the rear end of the car the front end of the train collided at full speed with the concrete barrier.

Immediately a massive plume of smoke shot through the cave towards the grim along with the din of twisting metal and cracking stone. The white wolf covered its eyes with a paw and closed its mouth as the dust shot along, while other younger grimm howled in anger as the fine grounds clogged their noses and eyes. The king Taijitu was the loudest of these and it lunged down towards the surface with enough force to send some Grimm into the walls in its anger. Some of the more unfortunate ones were slammed along with the head of the great snake into the rubble that divided the tunnel from the inside of Vale, and the force shook the ground a second time.

The wolf stayed back for a moment, though with the scent of fear in the air from the Vale citizens riling its blood hesitance turned to intrigue and the wolf leapt onto the train to get ahead of the rabble scrambling for a chance to drink in blood.

Entering the bright light of Vale the beowolf peered into the gathering crowd at the square. Humans of various ages were staring mouths agape at the Grimm as they escaped though were quick to turn and run once the gravity of the situation dawned on them. The wolf stood on its hind legs glaring at the goings on, the beowolves chasing down men and women, the boarbatusks wrecking cars and a death stalker snapping at the humans trapped in an alleyway. The Grimm were on the slaughter.

As it took a step down from the mouth of the tunnel it glimpsed in the corner of its eye four young women pulling themselves from the ground and watching the terror unfold. The grimm was put on guard for the fact that it had not sensed the humans before, as they emitted no fear, hatred, or hysteria. Trace guilt hung in the air, thick but being rejected. The Grimm looked closer and saw at the waist of all the women a weapon. A sniff of the air and dust could be found meaning that the women were armed with no ordinary weaponry.

Outnumbered personally the Grimm fell onto its haunches and watched closely as the four women readied their weapons and began hollering at the grimm, anger being projected in their voices to try and grab the attention of the riot which was occurring all around them. Ironically, as their first attempts failed their resulting anger and guilt drew more and more attention until all the Grimm in the area bar the boarbatusks and death seekers were gathering around the podium they had run to in the centre of the square. The Wolf saw this as a pointless venture, mostly through the lens of an easy kill, though once they began fighting the confidence turned to suspicion.

It had seen in its life various individuals holding the power of such weapons, be them swords or maces or bludgeons, and their strength stood as foe to the supremacy of the pack, but the young here wielding their weapons appeared much stronger than most. Two short blades, gauntlets like blunt claws and a final blade like the arch of a seeker's claw.

Fear edged into the wolf as it watched each woman cut through a half dozen wolves each without diminishing in their strength. As individuals they appeared to be formidable, and with cursory glances at each they were juggernauts in their own right.

But were they?

The wolf peered at each of the fighters to learn their styles and after a few minutes watching each was noticing patterns. The one fighting with fists relied on a forwards bludgeoning to beat the enemy into submission using her brute strength and swift strikes to devastate the grimm. The red one, the one with the strange blade was using her incredible sped to swiftly slash at her foes. The heavy blade she held seemed important as her small frame could hardly carry momentum on its own.

The last two were particularly troubling as one seemed to duplicate at will while the other filled the air with the stench of dust. The dust ignited an instinctual fear deeply seated in the core of the wolf and without understanding of its nature aside from the nonsense occurring around the symbols the white one created being of dust's nature.

A wolf could fight blade, but the unnatural was impossible to predict through the instinct of the grimm, and as the wolf slid away from the taijitu to avoid detection as the grimm began to thin. The women who had only been attacking those who approached them at first were now piercing into the waves of grimm and, most importantly, separating. The yellow and red women were splitting away. The red one was unknowingly moving towards the wolf and as the beast crept forwards it kept eyes on the rest who were dealing with their own opponents.

Clawed fingers arched before curling in like the knuckles of a gorilla to keep them sharp. Just before the wolf could leap the taijitu was attacked by a soaring human who had flown like a bird through the air to crack the skull of the beast with ease. The attack distracted the red human and the grimm made its move and dashed across the stairs.

As grimm age the amount of white exoskeleton covering their body increased to combat the weapons of man. Some grow spines along their backs to ward of a strike to the spine, others protection about the head like a taijitu if that was their preferred mode of attack. As a grimm got older and older, however, the amount of armor would shift from specific to universal. As such the white streak of the wolf, pure white with red markings and armored from head to toe in this carapace was built for speed and protection as opposed to offensive prowess. It was a mere blur on the field as it grabbed Ruby Rose and leapt onto the nearest building.

The strike was carefully calculated in a way, the left arm came forward to grab the outside edge of the blade to prevent laceration while the right grabbed the woman by the waist and hoisted her alongside as he crossed the distance between ground and two stories up.

Upon landing he tugged forcefully on the blade wrenching it from the red one's grip before pushing her a fair distance away onto her rear. While she looked around surprised the beowolf held up the weapon and inspected the mechanism of the blade, sniffing along the staff end to find where the dust was inserted before finding where the barrel was near the base of the blade. It was careful not to press anything resembling a switch, or make any sudden movements with it as the child seemed to do to collapse it.

* * *

><p>"Ugh….uh…" Ruby looked about confusedly as she recovered from the sudden vertigo. She was used to high speeds but when she wanted them, not when they came out of nowhere. "Why am I up…?"<p>

The peered over the edge where she was sitting and made a short squealing noise before pinwheeling her arms to keep herself from falling the distance. She scrambled backwards from the edge and pulled herself up before turning and finding herself mere feet away from a very bizarre looking beowolf.

Which was carrying her crescent rose. _Two times in like, four hours! Why does this keep happening to me?!_

"Nice wolfy..." She said in a high pitched tone as if she were faced with an unruly dog. She kept her eyes trained on the scythe though she periodically hazarded a glance at the red eyes. "Just… put down the weapon, go fetch something, find a nice hole to dig… Eheheh."

Her nervous giggle seemed to gain some sort of attention and after pausing the Grimm looked up from the weapon to deliver a glare with empty eyes.

"Or wait a little longer, that's OK, uh, just give rose back to me when you're done…" She shifted from side to side glancing from her position on the roof down to where the fighting was on the ground. She could see the rest of team RWBY fighting for everyone else just down in the square but she was stuck with some beowolf who didn't know the firing end of the weapon from the holster.

_Tch-Chick._

"Eh?"

She had been distracted just a moment but the beowolf had in that moment figured out how to load a round into the barrel of Crescent Rose. It then lifted with one hand the weapon into the air as if to fire a shot straight into the sky before bringing it down in an ark with the barrel facing RWBY. Instinctively she shifted to the side at high speed.

_Alright, maybe it does know something._

* * *

><p>"Ruby!" Shouted another of the children, her voice equal parts horrified and surprised when it reached the pair on the roof. The Beowolf turned its head instantly to the direction of the shout and though its hackles raised with the approach of the yellow one no fear gripped it. The four were close combatants and man had a weakness for fellow man.<p>

The Beowolf was finished with the scythe as it had learned all it could from the observations it made of the red one. It had found the trigger though keeping awareness of noise at the forefront it had avoided it lest the humans below feel the need to attack. As it turned out the grimm had no need to reserve itself as mere moments after the cry the flaming body of Yang barely missed the wolf. Knowing that a fight between the two women would be stacked against it the wolf flicked crescent rose like he had seen the red one do and after it had collapsed threw it into the traffic of grimm below being fought by some newcomers.

Escape was now on its mind as floating islands began to approach from the waters. Dodging away from a strike of fire and launching itself to another roof the grimm sprinted at full speed on all fours in the opposite direction of the flying machines before making a steep right dodging through panicking humans to scale a wall and watch the continuing battle.

With the speed of relocation the yellow one did not give chase, or perhaps was more concerned with the wellbeing of the red one as they both still stood on the rooftop. Hiding in the shadows the grimm was well out of sight but shifted farther back when the gaze of one of them crossed its hiding spot. As the giant ships began to mow down the remaining grim and one of the women with a massive weapon began to shoot down Nevermores flying above. It was clear that the grimm in their bloodlust had unsettled the population but the swift response of man had cut the fighting short.

What was more distressing was the fact that another of the humans had passed near the hole in the ground and sealed it in a few moments effectively locking the wolf inside Vale. It growled quietly trying to hide the sound as people moved about below to try and see what was happening in the lower quarters.

The red weapon was not difficult to figure out, and the beowolf had already determined the properties and functions of it, though not the technique. For any future attack against these humans the rest of these weapons would have to be inspected for mechanics. To understand how the weapon works would be how to understand the techniques necessary to combat them. To fight man, the wolf would need to learn the secrets of man.


	2. Hunt

**The Same Night…**

Ruby Rose was lying awake in her bed staring up at nothing in particular, a grumbly sigh forcing its way through her nose. Yang had talked her out of going to Ozpin. It hadn't taken a whole lot of convincing everything considered, it was late and everyone was tired and to top it off Glynda had said the head of school was in a meeting. The last one had sort of sealed the deal but it was really being tired that made her simply head to bed.

"Hey Blake, how smart are Grimm?" There was a measure of awkwardness in her voice, unsure of how to approach it. She saw a giant white beowolf, it wasn't like anyone would think she was telling the truth with a story like that. It sounded like some sort of urban legend. So... The roundabout way was best in order to avoid any unnecessary embarrassment. "Like, any grimm."

Blake, who had been dozing on her bed shook herself awake before pulling herself upright, half-glaring at Ruby who awkwardly chuckled. "Study." Blake said flatly before reaching from her bunk to a book she kept propping one of the windows open. It was a bit old, and was cold from the night's breeze. After retrieving it she tossed it into the redhead's lap. "Read one of the bookmarked pages… Old…" A long yawn and the faunus was back to sleep.

"Hey, watch it that's co-."

"SHH!" Came the response of three tired teammates.

Grumbling halfheartedly to herself Ruby looked at the mess of bookmarks and barely managed to hold back a sigh. "_This will take forever_." She thought to herself dramatically before flopping onto her back and leafing through the first of two dozen marked pages.

**/**

Man was hardly responsible for their own folly. They were weak. And had trust of streets that had too many shadows. The wolf had spent the better part daylight hours skulking in the darker corners of the city where few ever ventured by moonlight. They may have died that night should the Grimm have been inclined but so far it had managed to avoid meaningful detection. Glimpses of movements and such were necessary fouls when traveling a populated city at night and while a scream or two had raised attention little was done. They thought they were safe.

The wolf could tell. It watched from around corners or listened from the eaves. It could understand little of what they had to say but what it could tell from the tone that the weak and fearful were being comforted by the confident. The scent of fear would fade and mankind would continue blindly.

The beowolf was at a greater disadvantage than maybe some of the other members of its species would have been. The exoskeleton of armor was useful for defense but stood out like snow in the darkness of the streets. It was the biology of grimm though, and the wolf couldn't curse it any more than a human could curse skin, though the inconvenience of it made all actions dangerous ones.

The objective… The grimm didn't need food, and neither did it need rest so what else could a beast do?

Track.

It had not so easily forgotten the display earlier in the day. The four who had first appeared then those who followed shortly after… Those were the guardians of man. The rest were easily slaughtered, they were the masses which no grimm need concern themselves with. Others, however, were of interest.

So the destination was Beacon.

From the commercial district it was a trek, and though it was night the going was slow and the distractions plentiful. The daily pains of man were hardly enough to attract any grimm but dust could inspire distrust in any of them.

At times the wolf had to halt its progress to the cliff to stare at some dust-powered device, if only when lighting permitted. Street lights, especially those which were 'burnt out' attracted it and at times it would leap up to the top of the device and perch itself there. Glancing from side to side for anyone observing the beast carefully pulled apart the housing which contained both the red dust and the activation source.

The grimm had to resist every instinct in its body to simply toss the red crystal powder onto the ground and tear the entire fixture to the ground.

Instead it opted to simply drop the dust and poke about the fixture for a moment as it tried to keep in mind where the dust would have been housed. After a minute of confusion the grimm grumbled its disappointment before leaping down to street level and reorienting itself. The cliff which Beacon sat upon was not too far off now, just over a river.

**/**

Maybe she should have waited for Blake to explain it in the morning.

Ruby was still up scanning through the highlighted sections of the book on the modern history of Grimm conflicts in the kingdoms. She was sure there was a point in the book that was supposed to be interesting but thus far she was coming up with nothing relevant and a little bit of a headache. Was what she was looking for even in the book? It was a history book, not a biology book, why would it have what she was looking for in it?

She stopped her internal rambling before it prevented her from actually getting through the text.

It took another fifteen minutes but a story about a huge boarbatusk caught her eye and put her on the right track. It recounted how two huntsmen clearing out the forest near a settlement came across a boarbatusk that was several times larger than the average grimm and wary of approaching the two. Since they needed to clear the forest regardless of whether or not the beast was violent _now_ they tried to kill it only for it to run off.

Ten years later the same boarbatusk, but slightly larger with much more developed grimm markings attacked the settlement leveling several houses before the same hunters could put the beast down. In the course of the ten years the boarbatusk had grown noticeably and also become much more resilient to the weapons being used by the hunters which had injured it before.

Some historical comments were made which Ruby skipped through since she was short on time since sleep was knocking, and on the next page she found the explanation she was looking for.

"_Grimm have shown a remarkable ability to adapt over their seemingly limitless life spans. Over the course of centuries a grimm may develop a wide range of defensive and offensive capabilities which allow them to better attack human strongholds. While these traits to not appear to be inherited (as 'young' grimm rarely show features of 'old' grimm) they seem to develop along similar lines. Examples of this are nevermores, which despite inhabiting varied regions of remnant all develop the ability to launch their own feathers as projectiles. _

_While the body of grimm are complex, their minds are not. Grim who encounter human defenses and survive may rapidly come to understand them and be wary of them. This defensive 'fear' however only develops into tactics of how to overrun defenses, and as such mean that grimm with the knowledge of age rarely, if ever, have any higher cognitive abilities beyond that which allow them to attack humans more effectively."_

"Well… That's a bit scary." Ruby mumbled to herself before shutting the book again. She laid back in her bed staring at the ceiling as she contemplated what the words meant. _A Grimm learns to wait for an opportunity. They don't learn what things are? Then what was the beowolf doing with Crescent Rose?_

According to the book the wolf should have either avoided Ruby or killed her, not taken a moment to try and understand the weapon she was using, let alone figure it out. Did that mean it was smarter? Or really, really old?

_Fiddlesticks._ She thought to herself before pulling herself upright again and opening the book a second time, flipping to her page and leafing through a few more details that seemed more territory related than anything.

Eventually she came to developments and a few diagrams. They were sketched like someone who loved scratchy lines and charcoal had been hired just for the fun of it since it was a bit difficult to make the sketched forms out.

"_The physical developments of each grimm can vary quite wildly as mentioned earlier in the chapter, however their morphisms tend to related to their Grimm Masque and the development of it across the body. As a grimm ages and develops its resilience the same white material which makes up their mask will start to cover other regions of the body, often as scales on taijitsu, spines on beowolves and larger tusks on boarbatusks. Within twenty and one hundred years the number and strength of these features will increase. In the rare case that a smaller Grimm such as a beowolf grows to be centuries old regions of their bodies will become increasingly encased. This armor has different claims of strength, though it is universally recognized that any grimm covered in any armor of that sort is to be treated with extreme caution."_

"So it's really, really old but isn't any smarter?" Ruby asked herself and after reaching the end of the chapter it looked like that's all they had to say. "But…"

She wasn't happy with that answer by any stretch. She had seen beowolves with spines, though Ursa and Ursa Major were more likely to have them. They were stronger, sure, just like the book said but she hadn't seen them do anything really… Smart.

"Oobleck would know." Ruby decided, remembering the comment the professor had made about the goliaths the day before. Happy with that, or at least accepting that it was unlikely she would learn anything new that night, she rolled over and passed out promptly.

**/**

The beowolf was hiding out of sight near the river, eyes trained on a human fiddling with a box beside the bridge which connected the commercial and residential districts. The buildings thinned out near the embankment giving way to a broad concrete sidewalk with trees at regular intervals. The lack of buildings meant that no thick darkness could hide the beast, and the trees would be no camouflage to the large form.

Interest piqued though as the human cursed and went down on one knee to peer into the contraption. He was completely oblivious to the fact there was a grimm right behind him, and the wolf could tell that from the lack of fear in the air.

Glancing left and right to be sure no one was walking towards him it paused before dashing at high speed across the brickwork, its claws retracted so only the light thudding of a heavy body could be heard. If the man turned it would kill him and toss him into the water, if not then this was an opportunity to see whatever the dust mechanism was.

Coming to a half mere inches behind the engineer, and staggered to the side to prevent the shadow in the moonlight from giving away its location. The human was switching around vials of dust – unfortunately testing the grimm – and poking at different parts of the machinery. Every once in a few seconds he would reach over and type something in a holographic display, a creaking groan, then nothing. Every time the keypad lit up the grimm had to resist the urge to strike the human away. More of human creations appearing without warning.

Eventually after a short time the engineer shook his head and mumbled something, standing sharply and rolling his arms backwards. Pressing his hands behind his lower back the man tilted backwards until he was face to face with the ghostly mask of the wolf. Eyes closed the man had no idea he was breathing in the face of death.

The grimm for its interest was finding very little useful. The human was taking different vials of dust and different small pieces of metal and connecting them in different arrangements. The key component was dust, however, as while the human traded out the metal pieces regularly the dust was only swapped, not discarded. So their technologies all depended on the crystal? For the grimm who had seen very little of the workings of man's machines this still made it cautious.

The night was wearing on but there were still hours until sunrise, so the wolf followed the engineer part of the way into the residential district before cataloguing the scent. If the wolf needed to find a human with an understanding of their things he would suffice.

Not wanting to linger in the district as there were other machines patrolling the streets, the grimm retreated back to the riverbank and reached the cliff. It was a natural barrier to most grimm that could not fly, as the sheer cliff had few rocky outcroppings, though it was more to keep the animals _out_ of Vale and _in_ the highlands. Either way it created a problem for the grimm as it scanned along the cliff for an adequate path up. There were smaller cliffs and ridges elsewhere in the city but with the distance it had traveled any further detour would be a waste of time. It may not have the best coloration for nighttime travel but it was much worse when there were more humans to see.

Seeing no direct route up the beowolf approached the base of the cliff and searched for whatever alternate route the humans used. From its hiding spot earlier that day it saw floating machines carry the humans up to the cliff but alternate routes could also exist.

As it searched it heard the distant footsteps of another group of humans and it dashed swiftly to the side to avoid detection. Deep in the alleyway only its eyes shined, and those eyes followed the movements of three humans of different statures approaching the cliff. They were speaking quietly amongst each other though they stopped once they arrived at a small building recessed among the stone.

Once they had entered the wolf dashed back out from its hiding spot and stood near the doorway to listen for what might be happening inside. Four chirps sounded of different tones before a sound like whooshing air. Clicks, a sound like a smooth rock being drawn across wet grass, footsteps, the sound of sliding again, then the whooshing of air. A symmetrical sound.

The feelings which had been echoing from the three, malice, annoyance, pride swiftly dissipated. Not snuffed like a human had overcome themselves or suppressed themselves, just that some great distance had been crossed quickly.

Carefully crossing the doorway into a long hall the wolf crept down the passageway to a sleek metal wall with an outcropping just to the side of it made of some metallic compound. Approaching what appeared to be the doorway the fixture to the side of it lit up and a tune played. The wolf bit down a snarl that would have turned into a roar at the seemingly random appearance of the holographic interface. Again, human technology was creating things without origin and that unsettled some deep part of the grimm's psyche.

The tune played and some human words spoken before screen shifted from some symbol to a set of nine squares. The door did not open as the wolf had expected, and instead the holograph flashed three times to gain attention. The grimm peered down at the device and the squares which pulsed before showing human fingerprints pressing on one or another.

The grimm lifted its paw and with the end of one claw pressed one of the buttons. It rung immediately with a chirping tone before it stopped again. Immediately satisfaction washed over the grimm mixed with some concern. It pressed another button and yet another tone played. Twice more and then a loud buzzing noise, harsh on the ears played before the woman said something again.

Pressing the first button again the tone was the same. It took only one more cycle for the grimm to determine that the buttons were all tone related. The difficulty was the order though it remembered the sound from earlier. Like a nighthawk's young.

Low, low-mid, mid, high

The combination determined, there was another whooshing of air before the metal sheet slid to one side to show another platform. The Grimm entered it to find the scent of dozens of humans staining the walls and floor, enough to almost make it gag on nothingness. Once it had stepped on the lift began to ascend and the beowolf fell onto all fours, spreading itself out as fear gripped its mind. The sudden movements surprised it and for the short time it was moving the wolf could barely tell if it was moving upwards, or sideways, or had fallen into some trap. Only once the door opened to the grasses above the cliff the grimm was almost as viscerally gripped with relief. Pulling itself from the platform it looked down to the sprawl of vale below before turning to see the rising spires of beacon. It sniffed the air to find the scents of dozens of humans and the stench of dust.

It had found them.


	3. Answers?

**The next day…**

The area around the buildings had several places a grimm could hide during the day. Greenery surrounded the front approach while a forest in behind the facility provided ample cover. As far as the wolf could tell there were no grimm inhabiting the area as neither scent nor marking of any genera of the beasts were present. The forest below the facility, on the plateau to the east, did show signs of being sparsely populated from the cries that rose from the treetops during the night.

Whatever grimm had originally inhabited the local forests had been driven out and down the cliffs.

It made sense, and the wolf skirted these cliffsides for any signs one could scale them. The steep sides, along with the ease of sight made it unlikely any grimm could effectively attack the buildings in any great number. Further complicating things were the odd set of robotic guards making rounds near the forest lines searching for any stray trespassers. So far the beowolf had been able to avoid them, though they had a strength that man did not, scent. A grimm like the wolf could scent the trace fear one someone from a fair distance, and physically smell them from a much greater displacement. The machines stank of dust, but with the amount of dust being expended atop the hill they hardly stood out amongst the menagerie of odors.

So the wolf tried to keep to the treetops as it searched around the outskirts of the buildings. It was pressing its luck, it knew neither the weakness nor the mechanisms of the robotic guards and though it could simply crush them, whether that would _kill_ them was another question. Such things would have to wait, it did not sneak through the entire kingdom to toss itself from a mountain like a common dog to avoid death or capture.

It planned to hide amongst the trees for a day while it listened to the activities within. It may not know where one could hide yet but during the night there would be ample time to find a crevasse or rooftop ill patrolled.

The sounds were muddled through walls and distance, and the arrangement of some of the buildings made eerie echoes. Without understanding of the human language aside from tone and intent the wolf was at a disadvantage, but the sounds of training and clashing blades eventually caught the attention of the beast. Humans can mean what they will, and their patterns may be their greatest weakness, but how to fight the shepherds of man stood higher order than idle listening.

Waiting for the most recent set of guards to pass, the wolf slid down from its perch and moved perpendicular to the sound to try and get a better sense of where the sound was coming from. The difference between the first sounds and the second gave it the general location. It turned to step into the denser regions of the forest to take a more roundabout route but there was a sudden pressure on its back.

A growl was heard when the grimm turned, and though it was initially surprised by the sound it was dulled to curiosity as a white and black furry mass attempted to headbutt it in the chest.

Curling a lip the beowolf grabbed the dog and picked it up by its scruff, holding it arms distance away from its body and peering and the squirming animal. It was grumbling angrily and attempting to nip at the wolf but a stern shake forced it to stop.

A dog among humans. The grimm held the dog up and its mouth shut with a large hand while turning the animal over to inspect the body. It began glowing softly, and it tried to writhe again. The beowolf resisted the urge to snap the animal's neck right then and there. It would find the grimm again if given the chance, but to kill the animal would bring undue attention to the forest.

Despite the flaring of the dog's aura the grimm was completely unfazed. It was hardly affecting the grimm with its one-beast riot and without much recourse other than to simply carry the dog around – which was a terrible idea – the wolf wound the pet back in its grip before tossing it into the spires of the tallest building. There was muffled barking noises before a soft thud echoed. The form of the dog could be seen on that platform, jumping up and down but reluctant to try and leap from that height.

Free of the pest, but now with people possibly coming to investigate, the beowolf melted into the trees and continued its way to the sounds of clashing metal.

* * *

><p>Though some of the more dangerous operations were recalled from the field in the wake of the train accident the population of beacon was still quite spread out. A few had returned to the campus 'just in case', and team RWBY was currently waiting to see what would come of the incident in the merchant quarter. Ozpin hadn't called for them yet and nobody was really watching them since they were in need of their rest. At least that's what they were hoping.<p>

Blake was reading and Weiss was making a phone call about replenishing her dust supplies. Yang was still sleeping for some reason, and though Ruby was pretty sure she had gone to bed in her pyjamas she was fully clothed now. And sleeping. Weird.

"Thanks for the book." Ruby said after she finally moved from her position near the bathroom door. She had been a bit preoccupied since the last night and was most _definitely_ tired after staying up for who knows how long after everyone else was asleep. "I have it. Somewhere. I'll find it later, I'm going to look for Oobleck."

Weiss nodded absentmindedly, not realizing she wasn't being addressed, but Blake tilted her head. "What did you need again? I was too tired last night. I think I dreamed about throwing some snow at you which tells you how exhausted I was."

"It's… Uh…" Ruby shrugged. "I wanted to read up on what we covered before the other schools arrived. Weird dream…" _If she knows what book then she'll remember right?_ "Don't know where that came from. It was cold last night?" Ruby's possible explanation was so high pitched she didn't seem sure of it herself.

Blake narrowed her eyes before shrugging.

"Eh… heh…" Ruby shuffled on the spot before pulling her normal outfit over her underclothes and exiting the room. "Tell Yang I'll be back in a bit if she asks!" She called over her shoulder though at that point she was already down the hall and out of hearing range.

Oobleck's office was on the opposite side of campus from the dormitories and it was a bit of a walk. She had to pass by the main square of the campus which was doubling as a sort of form examination for some of the senior years before they went on an extended mission. There were two teams there with one instructor and each of them would perform shadowboxing before testing their skills on the huntress presiding. It was a dangerous sport when there was no aura monitoring but for the upper years they were supposed to determine their safety on the fly: When to back down and when to press the fight.

She paused for a moment to see that team CFVY were among those being tested. Coco was trying to compete with the huntress in hand to hand but the woman was deflecting the blows with relative ease, and despite Coco's superior strength she kept throwing herself off balance until eventually she had to submit. Ruby didn't know why until the drawn blade of the huntress could be seen being lightly pressed against Coco's neck.

"They're allowed to do that…?" Ruby wondered, though her fears were assuaged when the huntress bent the blade against her own neck. It was a fake though the huntress during the spar treated it like it was real. It looked crazy to onlookers, or maybe it was just Ruby, to see a teacher do something like that.

The rest of the trip to the faculty offices was only complicated by having to grab Zwei out of the air as he leapt down from the central tower. She had no idea how he got up there but was quick to hide him under her cape where the corgi hid, growling at nothing in particular.

She was muttering empty threats of abandonment when she finally was able to knock on Oobleck's door. It flew open like on an automatic latch and the sound of ruffled papers could be heard through the doorway.

Ruby entered to see Oobleck leafing through some papers at lightning speed, though he paused when she was fully through the threshold. "Ruby,-you're-up-early-for-someone-who-has-recently-fought off-a horde-of-grimm-what-brings-you-to-my-office?" He said in his normal speedy way. He turned on the spot and grabbed a cup, filled it with water and was beside her in a flash to hand the water off. "Drink up, aura-usage-is-taxing-so-keep-hydrated, hydrated!"

"Thanks." The huntress-in-training said as she took a sip. "I was going to ask about-"

"Old Grimm?" He asked, brow arched and expectant.

"Uh. Yeah?" A brow raised and she took another sip. "How-"

"Simple deduction. Work on it and it will serve you well." He cut her off again. "We're alive and nobody was gravely injured, you know that, I know that, I hope I know that, so it's not about the mission since we solved the problem. You know why you want to be a huntsman so there's no point in asking me why I didn't ask you because you know why I wouldn't ask you even if you don't know why you know why I wouldn't ask you."

The long string of words with a lot of didn'ts and wouldn'ts left Ruby a bit confused though she somewhat caught onto what he was saying. Maybe.

"And, as the one thing we spoke at length about was grimm and age and I do believe you were impressed by it, it is reasonable to assume that you might approach me later about something regarding grimm be it their age or their intelligence and I just need to a-"

"Sir, how smart are grimm?" She got right to the point since Oobleck seemed more than willing to not get to it on his own.

"Smart? Smart is a sticky term." Oobleck slowed down in a moment and he turned on his heel to grab a book from a shelf behind him. "Smart is either how well you perform maths or combine colors for an aesthetically pleasing tapestry. One can find intellect in animals and humans alike and sometimes the former outperform the latter in tests one would call those of aptitude. So what do you mean smart? Strong smart swift smart smart smart?"

"Like using tools?" She hazarded.

"Like a monkey with a rock for a brain." Oobleck stated simply. "Or no rock just a small pocket of air."

He continued after flipping through some of the pages of the book which Ruby recognized as being similar to the one Blake had given her to read. She was about to say something but Oobleck cut her off again.

"Grimm like many malevolent forces in the world strive only for the _malcontentisme _of humanity attacking both the creations of man and man itself, striving only for the strength and opportunities which would allow them to destroy human habitats." He finished the quotation and paraphrased all which followed. "Give a beowolf the key to its own cage and it would sooner try to gouge your eyes out with it then spoon feed it to a cat than try and free itself."

"So a beowolf couldn't use a weapon?" Ruby asked.

"No." Was the first short answer Oobleck had given.

"Even an old one?"

"How old is old for the species?"

"Say…" Ruby looked up to the ceiling at tried to remember what was written in the text. "Five hundred years?"

Oobleck laughed. It was a hearty one, one that had him shudder on the spot in at a hazy speed. "Half a millennium?" He asked with a hearty laugh in his tone. When he noticed that Ruby was not, in fact, kidding and was, in fact, serious he paused his laughing. "Hypothetically speaking?" He asked with a small amount of concern in his voice.

"Of course."

Oobleck smiled again. "A beowolf of that age would be reclusive and never approach the city." The doctor said with a measure of confidence. "As you saw with the goliaths old grimm would stay far away from the limits of the kingdoms in near seclusion. At that age they have lost battles with man for so long that they have survived each encounter to lick the proverbial wounds, growing smarter and smarter but also less and less likely to attack a human settlement. At their core they would still will the death of humanity, but without the agency to do so they would be too far from humanity to exercise whatever intelligence they may have."

_But one was in the city yesterday._ Ruby thought as she ground the toe of her right shoe into the floor.

"So they couldn't operate a weapon?" She asked, just to be clear. _Was that a fluke?_

"They couldn't, there would be no weapons for them to experiment with without getting close to humans. And for a beowolf of that age attacking humans would contain within the action a sense of paranoia at their own death, meaning that through the cyclical stress they would get no stronger and never exercise their intellect. They would be functionally as intelligent as any average grimm, which isn't."

She wanted to press the professor but if she did she would have to explain what she saw. And what if it was just a weird grimm? She hadn't seen albino grimm before but if a taijitu had a white body a beowolf could too, and if it was just some confused wolf then there was no reason to cause alarm.

But if there was cause to raise alarm… _I should ask Yang about what she thinks._

"Thanks profe-"

"_Doctor._"

"Doctor." Ruby corrected as she left the room. She sighed to herself and pursed her lips as she tried to think of what else she could to find out more about the grim. It was smart, and that was a bit weird and also slightly scary. If it could use a weapon could it pilot a ship? Probably not, two different things. She thought there was a lot of nuance to crescent rose but it wasn't the same as piloting a ship.

_Fooocuuuuus._ She mentally chastised herself as she gently knocked herself in the side of the head with her knuckles. As she exited the staff room she felt Zwei start to grumble again and nuzzle her in the back from under her cape making her giggle for a few seconds before she swatted her cape a couple of times to get him to calm down.

When she looked up she was looking at the square where the upper years were practicing again. She was watching Yatsuhashi attempt to pin the huntress when another nip at her back made her walk over to the woods to try and deal with the dog. It was being a nuisance, and while usually it was mischievous right now it was being a bit of a pain.

The second she was on the other side of a couple of trees the dog jumped down from the cloak and dashed towards a cluster of trees not far from the training second years. She gave chase, yelling under her breath for Zwei to come back as she used her semblance to try and grab the dog before it leapt into one of the trees it had stopped at.

As she picked it up the dog continued to squirm and managed to evade her grip, though as the animal lacked any hands though it managed to get all four paws on the tree it simply slid back down to the ground.

"Stop that Zwei!" Ruby commanded a second time, picking him up and holding him tight to her side. She looked up for whatever he was so obsessed with and found herself for the second time in two days looking at the mask of the armored beowolf. She froze for a moment mouth slightly open as if she were going to say something jokingly…

* * *

><p>The beast was more irritated now with the persistence of the dog than the appearance of the red one. The dog should have given up and turned-tail once it had been thrown onto the tower, though this one seemed more than happy to hound the Grimm down. So it should be killed, or, the next time it saw the dog it would toss it down one of the cliffs and see if it took longer for it to fetch itself.<p>

Either way, the dog was going to become more a problem alive than if its carcass were found in the doorstop of one of the buildings.

The grimm paid cursory attention to the human since right now she was armed with the contraption and those humans not too far away would come running if a fight were to start. Relocating seemed like the best option but any option was contingent on how the human acted. She could be pinned again, the weapon stolen to leave her without recourse but to escape but that still left the problem of a shepherd-turned-sheep bringing more to the forest. A situation the grimm would want to avoid at all costs.

So the grimm stared at the girl for a moment to see what she would do. It was impressed by the ability of the child to resist the call of fear, more a sort of hesitance. If she could fight without showing her anger, her aggression then she could surprise it. If she had no control than evasion of the weapon's draw could work.

The question is whether or not the child could be inspired with fear without rousing her comrades.

A question which would have to be explored but at that moment the grimm saw a faunus from the group it has been observing approach the forest, eyes casting about for what the wolf assumed to be the red one. A weak child, perhaps, a sheep with sharp teeth, from what it saw of the fight. Regardless, another sheep, more to bleet when bitten.

The grimm grumbled, annoyed, as it leapt down from the tree silently when the red one was dealing with her pet again, and once it hit the ground it sprinted low through the trees. It could hear the call of the red one before the faint sound of the faunus reached its ears. It was already far enough away that there was only silence, and after leaping into a grove of trees and listening for a moment it was certain that the girl had either never started the chase or given up on it.

No matter, it had seen all it really needed to from that group. The reliance on weapons was heavy, only a few of them seemed to have discipline in their unarmed strikes and of them only a few had weapons which complimented the style well.

So disarming was the route to eliminating man. Their technology was their keystone… Or so it appeared.


	4. Taking Chances

The beowolf didn't foray out of the woods until later that afternoon when the noise in the area had mostly died down. There was no fear in the air or apprehension so either the red one had decided to resist telling the other humans of a grimm in the area or whomever had been sent had no fear in their hearts.

Scent though had no adequate mask, and after deciding that there was no imminent threat the wolf decided it was time for more investigation of the humans. Pushing its luck where there were so many shepherds was folly, so scaling one of the cliffs to enter the city proper again have to be the complimentary recourse. The humans would be grazing but the grimm was unsure how long it would be staying in the area. How much needed to be comprehended? How much _could_ it understand without being able to extract information from the very minds of humans?

Uncertainty. It plagued the beast at times and to counter this it made up its mind. The city below would be searched for any outstanding technology. Metallic boxes could be pried open, light fixtures cracked, light-creatures examined… Collecting some of the components would not be too difficult though it would require multiple trips from the city to the cliff to move all the pieces. The engineer from the night before had several mechanical parts for one device, the grimm would need many, many more to try and effect its own craft. With no prior knowledge it would be an exercise in trial and error.

There was time for that though.

Getting off the cliff was a trial as the device which had elevated the grimm before was in use by humans returning to the buildings. There was a moment of pause where the door remained open, and while some humans did take the lift down it was likely that humans waited at the bottom. It was likely a grimm appearing leaving or arriving would illicit the same responses.

So the cliff was the only choice. Flying machines complicated things, along with how the trees spaced out the closer the wolf got to the edge of the grounds. As it skirted the grassy opening looking for the best place to approach the ledge it noticed a broad path which lead from the cliff down to the northern end of the city. Few were using it as it was a long hill, but most were traveling down rather than up, and there seemed to be no settlement to the outside edge of the path.

Between scaling the cliff and taking the longer path the safer choice was obvious, and the grimm followed after a group of four that were walking down In loose pairs. A brown and yellow pair and a pink and green one, all of various statures and a dissonance in their gait. Were they weak? Or young?

It was the best way to spend time, so the wolf did as it had been for a while now; remained silent while observing the actions of man.

Blake Belladonna was shocked. She honestly was, and while she was sometimes unsettled by things this was the first time in a while she was honestly completely surprised by something and not horrified.

Though this was a bit of a horror in and of itself.

"Ruby, why are my books strewn across…" Blake asked as she stepped back into her room to see her regularly ordered books neatly spread about the room in a lopsided circle. In the middle was Ruby, flipping through the pages of one of the books. She had obviously been through most of them already since the flatter side of the circle had bookmarks in them. "Catching up on studies?"

Ruby didn't respond at first, staring at one of the books intently before sighing and closing the text.

"There's a grimm on campus." Ruby said, though she sounded more frustrated than worried. She had an annoyed look on her face which faded quickly when she looked at Blake. "I want to catch it."

The faunus was fairly certain she had heard the leader of team RWBY wrong. So certain in fact that one of her ears moved slightly as if it would catch the echo of the words and somehow rearrange the sounds into something, anything, which didn't sound like…

"You want to catch a _grimm_?"

That.

Weiss, who had been reading her magazine in silence tossed it down before climbing out of her bunk. When she was standing on the floor her mouth was parted like a scandal had occurred before her very eyes. Or was about to at least.

"Ruby, where did you find a grimm on campus? And why didn't you report it to the faculty?" Weiss managed to reel back the emphatic tone and Blake internally congratulated the Schnee for showing some restraint. "There shouldn't be _any_ grimm on campus. And why do you want to capture it?"

"Ah… Well…" Ruby said, her tone rising and showing her own uncertainty. "In order… Outside the main square in the thick trees which kinda divide the area where CVFL was practicing with the Huntress and one of the back paths. I don't know how it got on campus but it knows how to move through the trees well… But that's a beowolf I guess… and it's acting weird."

"Uh, Ruby, that's not just on campus, that's _in_ the campus." Blake pointed out as she stepped towards the younger woman. "If there's a grimm here that's one thing, but if they found a way to scale the cliffs they could attack Vale at any time."

"See… Maybe?" Ruby said, or asked rather. She didn't seem certain one way or another despite the fact Blake was fairly certain that any grimm that were hanging around Beacon wouldn't have too hard a time making their way into Vale proper. Then she realized something.

"Wait, if it was a beowolf?" Weiss asked, incredulous, beating Blake to the punch as it were. "Why didn't you just kill it then?"

"It's a weird wolf!" Ruby finally exclaimed, surprising Blake and Weiss. "It's old! Probably, like, four hundred years old or something and it didn't attack anyone. It was just kind of watching people and when I saw it yesterday it was just curious…" Ruby ran out of steam when she realized her little interference game was going to come to light. _Should have just told them last night._

"Wait, there was a wolf that escaped the tunnels into the city!?" Blake was surprised that Ruby had a bad idea, but to let a grimm escape unhindered into the wild? Ruby might be a bit brash at times but they were mostly past that right? She wouldn't let people get endangered like that.

"I would have thought it was dead since the Atlesian mechs appeared!" Ruby countered. "I thought it was weird, not that it would come to Beacon!"

"Let's… Just find it alright?" Blake finally said after a long pause. "We're probably already in trouble for the train incident. We don't want you getting in any more trouble… Even if you maybe should."

Weiss sighed but nodded. "Blake's right but how do we find it?"

As she said that Blake could see Zwei speed out from under one of the bunks and start barking, bouncing up and down on its hind legs while kicking out with its front paws. It 'punched' at each of the three girls present before falling onto all fours and giving a convincing yip. The faunus wasn't sure what the dog was certain of though as its pantomiming left much to be desired.

"Zwei can sniff out the grimm." Ruby said, smiling and picking up the dog which barked cheerfully. "He led me to the wolf when I was walking back from Oobleck's office. He tried to climb a tree and when I checked to see what he was looking for there was the beowolf."

"Is there anything this dog can't do…?" Weiss asked aloud. The dog seemed to bark a 'no'.

It was proving less than useful to have determined the abode of the engineer.

An hour was all it took for the Grimm to retrace its steps to the residential quarter, and from there to the general area of where the engineer had lived was only a short distance. The problem was that even though the Grimm knew – generally – where the human lived it did not know where he was currently. If it was out interacting with the machines as it had been doing before then there was a wide swath of land where he could be working.

It would take a while to sniff him out and with the amount of time spent in the dust-rich air around the clifftop smelling _anything_ was proving difficult. So there would need to be another human to follow and observe. There were many of the cattle wandering about in the evening light but to follow a human on a mundane task would be to waste time but the difference between a human with purpose and one without was unclear.

Again the wolf found itself watching and waiting. Not the best way to spend time but better than hunting aimlessly. To keep out of view it made use of the roofs which were unfortunately the only places free of searching eyes. Steep shingles made for treacherous footing but the more risky component was the fact that the heavy beowolf was noisy upon leaping and landing. Detection was highly likely already with a single mistake, creating more opportunities for those mistakes was rather low priority.

Patterns in the humans began to form the more the grimm watched, just as before. It was currently situated over the eaves of a restaurant which had a constant stream of humans coming and going. Emotions were running below the beast, but while there was a ping of anger or betrayal there were few that held the emotions close to them for long enough for it to be considered a 'temptation'.

The patterns of aggression were interesting. Once one of the humans was annoyed it would be either mostly dispelled or exacerbated, rarely remain constant. If a human rushed to the entrance a corresponding dose of annoyance would diminish more often than not. If someone laced with anger entered than either others would become angry or that individual would diminish in their own emotions.

It was filtered through temptations, but the grimm could tell that humans relied on each other for emotional sorting. A human in an emotional state affected others, a hysteric person was either calmed or others fell to hysterics, never did any emotions remain unchanged.

The more intense the emotion the more likely it would catch with others though. This was more important to the Grimm than any other piece of information that could have been gained, that a human instilled with delirious fear was an agent of fear spreading the 'temptation'.

If it understood the words of man it could have determined the nature of the emotions but without understanding it was left to guess. The wolf knew the humans treasured their lives and the existence of their constructs. Destroy a bridge and anger takes hold, destroy a life and grief does.

But what else? A Grimm only knew those two things, the destruction of man and its mechanisms. Ignoring the emotions around it the beowolf paused and tried to listen through the walls in vain. What was it that drove these humans to their emotions? What unsettled them but death and destruction? They were safe, _thought_ they were safe, what affected them?

With a growl the bestial mind found no answer.

Then a familiar sound echoed off the walls of the surrounding buildings. A laugh like a howl that it had heard earlier. One of the women, the pink one, had made the same noise while the wolf had been shadowing the twin pairs down the path leading from the cliff. It was loud, boisterous, and effected immediate slight annoyance from three which dimmed immediately.

The grimm edged closer to the lip of the eaves and when looking down saw, as it had expected, the group of four. The one was laughing for whatever reason while the yellow was sighing, though his ally on the other side in brown appeared to be consoling him.

The humans looked to have completed whatever task they had set out to do. Objects were being carried of different shapes and sizes and the yellow one was showing some signs of fatigue. The pink individual was still highly energized, however, and made a few swinging motions with her hands together before making a near full spin and bringing her hands forward like swinging a club. Bringing a hand to her eyes she turned her head in a dramatic arc like watching a falcon weave through leaves before…

The wolf ducked down when it realized the path of the woman's gaze would meet his own in mere moments. It didn't need to go prone but it did quietly take a few steps back to be sure. A sudden cracking sound was heard along with some sort of explosion and suddenly the pink woman had soared into view just over the lip of the roof. She was standing on the edge of some great hammer like it was a step of a sort, and had her eyes shaded against the sunlight with a flat hand resting against her forehead.

"Here puppy puppy puppy…" She called out, looking side to side until she seemed to notice the grimm. Her expression widened and she was thrown for a moment causing her to lose her balance and fall backwards out of the air.

The equally surprised wolf wasted little time in retreating, and with a great leap it tossed itself from one roof to another before sliding to a halt. The steep eaves were tiled, and a few of the ceramic plates fell to the ground in a clatter before settling. The pink woman appeared again, this time soaring across the building and spinning in place with a determined look in her eye. The grimm shifted itself as close to the roof as possible without sliding and watched carefully. It had chosen the darker side of the roof because though the whiteness of its armor would stand out somewhat at least it wouldn't glow in the evening light.

The pink woman completed her arc, but by the time she was soaring back a second time the wolf made certain of its escape and leapt three buildings away to hid in the shadows of a bakery's tall chimneys. Two more of the group of four ascended to the roofs to search but after fifteen minutes they returned to the streets.

To be sure the wolf waited another half hour before moving again. It was unsure of where to go now, as depending on what those four did it would either need to escape to the cliff now and lose the chance to collect some of the technology of man or escape to the forests beyond for its own safety. Would the pink one think it was her imagination? Possibly, but unlikely since other members of her group had come to search.

With no other recourse, and since the sirens that blared when the grimm had first arrived in the city were not playing yet, the wolf decided it would take the risk of vandalizing some of the human technology to see what could be learned.

It was taking chances, but those were all it had for now with no brethren to rely on. Ironic, that the wolf would be hunted among a flock of sheep.


	5. Options

**AN: Apologies for the lack of division between PoVs in previous chapters. isn't letting me insert line breaks, so I'll find a different way of doing it.**

It was risky.

Incredibly risky.

But it was working.

The white wolf had given up on randomly searching for insight and had decided that now was as good a time as any to break off some of the light fixtures which stood on the street corners. It seemed like it would be a risk whether it was day or not, since the loss of light would be more easily seen during the night while the grimm itself was easier to see during the day. It was a bit of an estimation act, but the wolf eventually decided that white light shining on its carapace during the night would be just as stark as daylight.

So now, the large beowolf was teetering on the top of a light post, trying to cut with a long claw through the neck of the structure to remove the mechanism within, as much of it as possible. The canine legs both helped and were a burden since with one hand it was easier to apply appropriate force to keep itself in place. Being unable to keep itself completely still, was making the incision a bit difficult.

After a few seconds of sawing the beowolf pulled up on the housing unit until it resisted movement with a somewhat sinewy bounce. Tethered. It must have been connected to the base in some way the grimm decided and after cutting another ring of metal away found the cable which connected to the mechanism. Another tug and it was clear the length was not going to give easily.

With a grunt the beowolf pulled the cord from the ground, a sound like shattering stone, or boiling water, something indescribable rang loud for a moment as the light went dark and the deserted corner dimmed slightly. The light was off and the power disconnected. The grimm had something which it could inspect for hours, and while it was uncertain if this would be a pointless endeavour the materials were already in its claws.

The humans would be returning to their abodes soon enough so there would be no one to observe and it was unlikely that the wolf would be so lucky as to find the engineer again. So the machine would suffice. Or be a waste of time. With no need to sleep the nighttime hours would probably be wasted anyways…

But would it need more pieces?

The grimm walked in the graying light of the street as it questioned that, but didn't see how. If the device worked as a unit, why should it need more pieces?

If the grimm accidentally damaged something inside the light fixture then it would need more lights, but to move quietly and effectively the beowolf needed both hands and as-is was only using one. Humans used skins to carry things but…

These thoughts in images and base ideas continued to cross the grimm's mind, making free use on the basic developed intelligence it had fostered over the uncounted decades. But for all that time, the beowolf was still in grimm terms hardly the smartest of them, and its mental capacity being fully overtaken by the complexities of how a light works made it rather oblivious to the goings-on around it. Team RWBY and JNPR were a bit more on point.

Ruby was happy that Zwei had resisted the primal call to yip at the beowolf as it lumbered down the street. It was larger than the average of a member of the species and it moved far too quietly for its size. They had seen the grimm daintily pry the light from the post and all of them were impressed in a detached 'that's cool but who did it isn't' way. Pyrrha had to throw a hand over Jaune's mouth to keep him from asking the question on everyone's mind which was 'why'.

"So that's an ancient grimm…" Blake said under her breath to herself. She read over the parts that Ruby had the night before and was surprised that a specimen existed for beowolves, a notoriously quick-to-attack species with little apparent difference between individuals. This beowolf, unlike any she had seen before, stood at a relatively reserved eight feet. It was odd because most beowolves were either six feet or twelve standing. This one had evolved to be smaller. _Why not just larger? Did it really learn that a smaller grimm had a better chance of hiding in Vale?_ The thought was unsettling.

"What's the white stuff all over it?" Jaune asked.

"An exoskeleton, like armor, it's like the mask that covers parts of all grimm but much stronger." Blake replied.

"Ah. Great. A super wolf." Jaune said sarcastically as he stared up to the first stars appearing in the dusk.

"It's definitely the same one I saw over Paggy's." Nora said, quietly but most definitely with her same energy, manghild in her hands like she was going to catch a bug in a net. A rather large bug in a huge net. "It was right in the middle of town but when I saw it it must have scurried off somewhere because it was scared!"

"Alright, so what are we going to do?" Asked Ruby, which was met with a protracted sigh from Weiss.

"Oh fearless leader, finder of the beast, you should know you let it loose yesterday." The heiress said rolling her eyes.

"Ah, right. I think we can capture it." Ruby said, a rising intonation showing she wasn't certain about that plan.

"Grimm die in captivity if held for too long. They either kill their keepers and escape, or they die. We should probably just deal with it now. We don't know what it's doing and if it's as dangerous as you all say…" Pyrrha trailed off.

"I say we deal with it now." Ren said after a short moment of silence passed.

"Can't we just ask Ms Goodwitch to deal with it?" Jaune complained quietly. He was ignored.

"If we're going to catch him we're going to need to knock it out…" Yang's brows creased. "Or do they just die..?"

"Not he, _it_, grimm are things." Weiss corrected, a small trace of bitterness in her voice.

"Guys, it's gone." Ruby interjected since it seemed like everyone had tossed in their two cents now. "And so is Zwei-oh-my-god-so-is-Zwei!"

Realizing that the pooch must have noticed that its people weren't doing anything and chased the grimm on its own Ruby launched herself around a corner to see if Zwei was anywhere to be seen. At first glance neither were even still on the street. Second glance too.

"Ruby, wait!" Yang called before Ruby could sprint down the street. She knew that while Ruby _usually_ didn't use her semblance when she was stressed it was true that if the younger sister did the rest of them would be searching for both of them. "Calm down, Zwei is smart. Let's head down the road and see if we find anything first before we freak out."

"But I'm freaking out _now_." Ruby retorted but relaxed a bit, looking less like she was about to zip away without notice. "The grimm didn't do anything last time but what if it does now? Zwei keeps finding it and-"

Weiss stepped forward and placed her hands on Ruby's shoulders. "Calm. Down. We'll find your mutt and we'll find the grimm. Just calm down before you start babbling."

Ruby shut her mouth and stopped talking for a moment, though it was obvious she had more things to say. Yang nodded to Weiss and Ruby realizing that there was no point in talking about blame let out a long breath.

"So, everyone has their phones, right?" Yang asked, taking charge for the moment. All nodded. "The grimm was heading east so it might be heading back to the academy, so it has to cross the river at one of the bridges to get to the cliff face. Ren and Nora hit the central bridge, Jaune and Pyrrha check the eastern bridge. If you run you should get there ahead of it. Blake and I will check the northern edge while Weiss and Ruby keep going along this road. We see it, we call the others to let them know. Alright?"

All present nodded and team JNPR split off to check the bridges. Team RWBY also did, and the net was being sprung to catch the grimm.

Said grimm was completely unaware of the fact that it had been seen, let alone was being trapped. It had been so preoccupied that only when it realized there was an annoying vibration on its elbow did it actually clue back into its surroundings.

The same accursed dog from before was back, this time biting onto the elbow arm of the wolf and trying to shake its head like a terrier. With nothing to plant itself on though, the black and white thing was only succeeding in wiggling its plump body side to side. It would have been cute for a human to see, maybe horrifying, but the grimm was starting to become annoying. Tossing the mutt had no effect, traveling far from the cliff did not seem to deter it, and the human which owned it did not appear to keep it on a tight leash.

It had no quarrel with beasts but a beast which refused to allow the grimm peace was not going to be spared. But did it have a choice? Animals slain which belonged to man created anguish, then hatred, then the aggression. A sheep would call shepherds, a shepherd would hunt the grimm. Or in this case the shepherd would hunt the grimm directly for culling a member of its personal flock.

The wolf had some amount of certainty in how to combat the speed of the red one, but the red one had allies in black, yellow and white. To attack one would be to attack them all, and to combat all three of them, especially the black and white, was a battle the beowolf didn't seem likely to win.

So it was now stuck with the dog. To let the dog return to the human would be to let the red one know where it was. No conflict had arisen last time but the grimm now had precious materials that were definitely worth more than a sparring match with a human which the wolf could not decisively end for fear of retaliation.

So, it picked the dog up in its jaws. It still needed one hand, so it reached down with one paw and picked the dog up. It began to yip and kick, then bark, and that would bring attention to the pair. Annoyed, the wolf opened its maw and put the dog up to its neck inside its mouth and held it there, closing its jaw around the neck as gently as possible.

Zwei for his part was going insane. This was literally the last thing many small dogs saw when fighting grimm and right now the dog was literally staring down the gullet of death. It kicked and groaned and gasped at whatever thin air made its way past the teeth of the wolf. It tried activating its aura but that only got a nip _around its entire neck_ as warning, and the dog went limp, wining.

It was difficult for the grimm to move with a mouth filled with corgi but it was still better than trying to use only its hind legs to walk all the way to the top of the cliff. It had been lucky in getting to the buildings using the lift before, but the amount of people who used it seemed to indicate that the occasion had been just that, _incredibly _lucky. So up the hill it was, and on two feet that would be treacherous for a beowolf trying to be stealthy as-is.

Once it reached the bottom of the hill it peered up to the first plateau to see if anyone was coming before making a dash for the grove of trees that made a small garden of sorts. It was the first bit of cover since the trail widened out at the bottom, thinning the trees from ten thick to none over the course of a few dozen meters. The most dangerous moments were those from the forest to the garden and the garden to the darker alleyways.

The grimm waited a couple minutes to see if it could hear any humans approaching from the road that ran perpendicular to the alleyway. During those seconds it saw twice the same pink woman from before soaring high into the air with the same pose she had earlier in the day. It was far from where the wolf had first run into her before and near the river it had crossed the day prior. Near where the engineer had been working, maybe. Just before it moved again the girl was in the air again, this time much closer and at about where the bridge it had used before was.

This was slightly concerning, but it decided that it was possible humans with such skills simply used the techniques for transportation. Possibly. Instinct was gnawing at the back of its mind telling it to _get the hell out right now._

Right as the grimm complied with that order and dashed from the cover of the trees the voice of one of the four colors echoed off of the streets.

"Zwei!"

Immediately the empty red eyes focused on the now-vigorously wriggling rump of the dog in its mouth. That was the name of the dog. This dog. The red one had said it before. So the yellow one owned this particular dog as well? Now it really _couldn't_ just bite down on the hairy thing because it might antagonize all of the four immediately. And they were close, the shout was an echo but a strong one.

The usually calm (for a grimm) wolf became infuriated with the dog, now almost more for the fact it could not simply eat it. To drop it now would be to let it start yapping, then how long would it take for its shepherds to arrive? Was the wolf fast enough?

It was time to find out.


	6. Tinkering

A hairy mass rolled down the street towards Weiss, the black and white pattern blurring a bit at the speed the thing was traveling along the pavement. It rolled to a stop, flopped over to the side, and yipped a sickly yip.

The heiress' brows creased for a moment before crouching down. "Zwei…?" She asked, simultaneously uncertain and horrified.

The dog grumbled its affirmation before pulling itself to its feel and shaking itself like it had just swam across a swimming pool, sending the liquid which had soaked into the fur of its upper body every which way. Weiss barely had enough time to jump away as some of it landed right on where she had been standing before.

"Ok that's just gross." She sighed before approaching the dog again, careful to make sure that he didn't decide he needed to shake a second time. The dog was wet, well, kind of wet since only its face seemed to be moist, almost like it had fallen face-first into a puddle. She picked him up, careful to avoid the wet spots and looked him in the face. "Where did you get off to?"

Still tired, and a little bit motion sick, Zwei just kinda nodded his head before yawning.

"Poor puppy…" Weiss said, smiling before the corgi disappeared from her hands into Ruby's.

The Schnee girl watched the team leader jump up and down, happy to see that the dog was alright, and decided she wouldn't complain about the dog being snatched away. Instead she grabbed her communicator and sent a text to everyone who was on the search.

_Found Zwei, was on the road that connects to the path down the north side of the city. No grimm, just a wet dog._

_W. Schnee_

She kept the device in-hand to check messages when someone called back, and smiled to herself as Ruby tried to play with the exhausted animal. The dog was tired, probably from running around the city for the past while, but was recovering nicely. It was odd, though, that Zwei had a lot more black around his face than normal… And was that smoke?!

Ruby screamed and picked Zwei up, Weiss rushing after as the leader tried to remember the closest body of water. She didn't question why it looked like the dog was burning, or why the animal seemed surprisingly calm, or why there was suddenly a case of spontaneous fire-less combustion. As they stressed, and just about the same time Ruby got her wits together enough to activate her semblance the black patches on the animal's face lifted off like leaves being blown off a tree. They rose, then disappeared.

"What is going ooooon?!" Ruby shouted, now completely unsure of what was happening. It was like smoke, like burning, but the dog was OK? Maybe it wasn't on fire? Just to be sure she started to wave the dog back and forth at a moderate speed to try and blow away any fire, just in case.

"What are you guys doing?" Blake asked, dashing to meet up with the pair from behind. She had heard the yelling and shouting from where they were just a few blocks away. "What's wrong with the dog?"

"We don't know!" Ruby said, calming as the dog stopped doing… whatever it was doing. "It just started burning and then black stuff started flying off it."

"What, like a grim?" Blake said, a brow raised as Yang caught up.

"Zwei isn't a grimm." Ruby said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, what if it was something from a grimm on it?" Weiss asked. "He was wet when I found him. He was rolling down the street like a ball and covered in some clear stuff… Hey, he's dry now."

"Like saliva?" Yang asked, shrugging her shoulders, and Weiss immediately narrowed her eyes.

"Are you telling me that not only did the grimm try to _eat_ Zwei, it spat it so hard it rolled down the hill?" Her voice got louder and louder as she spoke. "And then when the dog started shaking it almost got grimm spit on me?" She turned to the dog as if to ridicule it but stopped when she came to the conclusion that the dog had probably been through enough.

"Whoa…" Yang said, raising her hands in defense. "I'm not saying that, I'm guessing that it could be that. Who knows what the beowolf did? It just looks like it licked Zwei or something."

"Or attempted to eat it." Weiss countered.

"Regardless, Zwei found the grimm again." Blake said growing weary of the argument. "So we know we can find it as long as we follow Zwei, but we're lucky Zwei isn't dead yet. Grimm don't attack animals deliberately but this one might hurt the dog if it thinks we're being led to it."

"So… What now?" Yang asked, cracking her knuckles before crossing her arms.

The four looked at each other, waiting for one of them to have a brilliant idea.

"Well, do we want to search all the wooded areas from here to the Beacon?" Yang said, somewhat sarcastically. All present shook their heads. "Then I guess we're packing it in." That choice was met with similar reluctance.

"Yang and I can search." Blake offered. "I can see better in the dark than anyone and the grimm ran away from her last time, according to Ruby. If we find where it is hiding out then we can attack sometime tomorrow when it's light out. If it runs into us we can try pushing it down the cliff, forcing it out of Vale again."

Yet more displeasure with the options but Weiss and Yang nodded their heads, affirming their votes.

"Alright, I'll send word to JNPR what we have planned. Pyrrha might want to come, she's the best fighter of all of us." Weiss stepped away from the rest of them to make the call.

"But…" Ruby was obviously uncomfortable with the thought of staying back while others fought. She looked down at the dog in her arms though and sighed. "Alright. I'll look after Zwei for you guys. If I think you're in danger I'm going to be stumbling through the forest in the moonlight, so you better be back quick."

Erstwhile, the hunted was starting to move a large stone from the edge of the cliff into the trees. It had only one of these machines to tinker with that night, and while it may have risked working on the ground if it had three or four units, right then it only had one. Losing pieces could mean the thing didn't work, and the engineer had many pieces he was working with.

So it had found a relatively flat rock and was now dragging it into a small copse of trees where the foliage was much denser than normal. The sound of branches breaking and earth being gouged was a cacophony to the grimm but it was a necessary annoyance. Every few moments it would stop to listen since while the machines that patrolled were difficult to sense in other ways they still did make noise.

Three or four times the beowolf had to lay low while the robots wandered past, eyeless heads gazing into the darkness of the forest. It was unsettling being unable to see the eyes of an enemy, where they were focused and what they were thinking. The machines had none of that, and it made something like dragging a four hundred pound rock quietly through bushes a rather scary task.

Once the stone was in place the grimm shifted it until it was fairly flat and draw a claw over the face of it. A thin scrape was etched but not too quietly. Any cups to be drilled into the stone would need to wait.

Surface set, it retreated from the cluster of plants to grab the machine which it had hidden between a few rocks just a short distance away. It was slightly concerned about the location and had wanted to make sure it wouldn't be heavily investigated, and to keep the light safe in case of possible detection it kept it hidden so the grimm could make an effective getaway.

Now the problem was investment. If so much stuff was kept here then if it was found all was lost, so keeping the rock and the materials in different places seemed ideal. But more places to find things, the more likely a shepherd or sheep would find something suspicious. It was an awkward balancing act, and the beowolf was tentatively deciding on keeping everything here and then running interference to prevent anyone from finding the cache of materials.

More risks. It was starting to find them more and more acceptable, probably since simply being in the general vicinity of the city was dangerous, let alone where the shepherds resided. To reduce the risks would be to distance itself from the benefit of knowledge which its kind sorely lacked. So it would stay right where it was.

But the dog… Next time it would have to die. Too much in one place for the dog to alert the shepherds of everything that had been collected. A warning had been made, but the dog had ignored all others. Death was the prize for that tenacity.

It then set to work pulling apart the light. The cord was still attached to the base, frayed at the end but mostly intact but inert. The housing which contained the dust was untouched and a seam in the metal ran horizontal across it like a little scar. The grimm began there.

Taking the end of one of its claws it pierced the metal along that seam and carefully rotated the whole. It was difficult work for a beowolf who's hands were rather large and not designed for the deft work of construction. The cut was shaky and jagged at times, but deep enough that with a small tug the casing separated into two.

The top had nothing within it but some clear material so it was set aside on the top of the rock. As it was set down a light cracking noise was heard like stepping on snow and the beast immediately lifted it back up to see that the clear material on the inside had broken into fine pieces. Grumbling in dissatisfaction but leaving it alone for now, the housing was placed back much more gently.

The lower half which it now held up with one hand was the important bit, or so it seemed. A thin crystal of solid dust was held in place with two thin prongs which touched either side of the reddish structure. Both prongs were thin but…

This analysis continued uninterrupted for some time. The light appeared to be a rather simple mechanism compared to the amount of pieces required to operate the bridge, and the parts while fragile connected clearly with one another. What each individual piece _did_, on the other hand, was not so clear. The orange dust was the same color as the flame it emitted in the grimm's memory, so it was possible a connection could be made there.

The light had been dark since it had been torn from the cylinder it sat upon, and since aside from the clear stuff on the inside everything was the same, the cord which attached to the bottom must have played a part in making the machine work. Without knowing what each of the individual pieces did the only thing the grimm could think of was a general 'makes it work'. If untethered it did not shine then the tether must be an important piece which allows the other pieces to work. Maybe. Without any way of testing each piece it was random guesswork. Each piece was important, probably, else why would humans include it?

So there would need to be more trips to the city to find these lights, and then once the lights had been found the pieces would need to be changed while still tethered. If the machine required something deeper in the cylinder then the grimm wouldn't be able to get at it anyways, so it would need to be done while the light was working already with all of its pieces working as intended.

A grumble escaped its maw before it heard the crackling of leaves under footsteps not too far away from it. They were slow and deliberate, obviously trying to obscure the noise and while not coming directly _to_ the grimm, were close enough to be a considerable issue.

Now what would it do?


	7. Conflict

**Edits made, the fight between the Grimm and Pyrrha has been lengthened.  
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The trio of Pyrrhha, Yang and Blake had split up into a loose V formation. Blake moved along the trees in silence while Yang trailed a little ways back behind her close to the tree line. Pyrrha was last, walking on the wide berth that split the forest from the edge of the cliff.

Blake had thought of this area soon after a couple of generally good hiding spots were checked. It was densely forested with a few copses spread throughout. If the grimm was smart enough it would have chosen this area since it was least likely to be casually spotted. A good place to hide, but fortunately Blake had happened across the clusters of trees and bushes during one of her midnight strolls.

None of the three knew what they were going to do once they found the grimm. It was acting oddly, that much was certain, but what its ultimate goals were…? That was a complete mystery. Ruby was skeptical that the beowolf was doing as the texts had said and was only focusing on the eventual destruction of humans and faunus. She wanted to capture them but Blake was fairly sure that any attempt to capture the grimm would end all the previous attempts by people had gone: something died, either the captured or the captor.

Pyrrha agreed, though she was more of the thought if it got any older than it already was it would become an even bigger problem. It could already travel around the kingdom without being detected by anything but an impressively intelligent corgi. It had to go now or risk becoming an even bigger threat.

Yang… Well, Yang was interested. She remembered seeing the white wolf for the first time, swinging Crescent Rose like it was trying to learn how it worked. It was smart, it probably knew how to fight, and it might even know how to use human technology. It was a scary thought that a normally weak grimm like a beowolf could become something so dangerous, but it was also exciting.

Blake was the first to see anything from her perch in the trees. Through the thin branches of a birch she was hanging from she could see the dim light of the moon reflect dully off of the back of the beowolf. It was standing in a grove and casting its eyes side to side as if it had been expecting the three women. Blake guessed it had when the next leap she made to get a better look immediately snapped the wolf's attention to her.

It didn't move and surprisingly no sounds of anger, be it growls or snarls could be heard. It stood its ground but nothing more. Blake was about to call for Yang but the brawler broke through the foliage soon after, eyes already on the target. Pyrrha was only a moment after, javelin and shield at the ready.

What followed was surreal for the humans. The grimm's pupil-less eyes seemed to trace over them before huffing, turning, and walking away.

It actually didn't attack. Honestly, truly, suspiciously, it did not raise claws to the three of them and had opted to walk away as opposed to stand its ground. Blake was still surprised despite reading this from her book. A grimm showing better judgement. Sure, it was weird to see a grimm take the top of a light post but that didn't seem wholly contradictory to their nature. Grimm killed people and destroyed what they made. They might try and learn how to effectively destroy a light but-

"We aren't going to let it just walk away, are we?" Pyrrha asked, sounding a bit incredulous as both Yang and Blake remained where they stood and did nothing to make chase. "We found it, now it's time for us to deal with it."

"Well, it's not attacking anyone right now. We might need to put Jaune on a leash so he doesn't accidentally run into this guy but he doesn't head out into these woods anyways." Yang now knew where the grimm was and could bring Ruby to it. If it didn't want to attack then Ruby's interest could be satiated and they could all go their separate ways. She didn't _like_ grimm, but she liked the idea of one not trying to kill every human it saw.

"_Right now_." Pyrrha emphasized. "Blake." The faunus' eyes shifted from the receding back of the beowolf to her friend. "You said that in your book when a grimm goes old it gets smarter, and with that intelligence it learns to wait until the most opportune time to strike and kill, right?" The gladiator didn't wait for the nod. "So if we just leave this thing here, it will keep growing stronger until it decides it doesn't need to turn its back on us. And then what do we do?"

Yang and Blake exchanged glances but were still quiet for a moment. They had no good counter. They could hold the grimm's freedom in good faith but what was honor to a monster? None of their kind had ever tried to communicate peacefully with people in the past, was there a precedent for changing the fear?

No, maybe there wasn't.

But the hope for it made it difficult for them to meet Pyrrha's eyes.

"Fine. I'll do it then." The redhead muttered as she flicked Milo into its blade form, and as Blake stepped forward to stop her but Pyrrha cut her off. "Even if this beowolf is stronger than fifty of its own kind each of us has driven through dozens each. It's still just a wolf, and I _will_ be careful."

Blake shook her head but stepped back again as the JNPR member flicked her blade again into its javelin form. They didn't know enough about the beast's age but it was old enough to no longer have fur and be completely covered in armor. That was a centuries old grimm at least, something which the world probably only had a few of. But they were still grimm at the end of the day, they could be destroyed with normal methods.

A bang and the javelin was launched at immense speed at the back of the grimm who near instantly dodged, to where exactly was hard to see in the darkness. The javelin returned to Pyrrha's hand after a moment and she dashed farther into the grove to find the wolf.

She didn't get far. She threw her shield up just in time for it to absorb a tackle from the wolf that had relocated since its dodge. It was undeterred by the wall, however, and using both paws it pushed down on the top of the diplyon slowly sliding its opponent back. Not to be pinned the woman struck out with her blade, pushing with her shield at the same time in an attempt to throw it off balance.

The blow and the bash didn't do much, if anything, and while the pause gave her a chance to duck away the beast was undeterred. Its brow was creased almost like a human's frown and the slight movements of its muzzle gave away the fact it was following every movement.

Stopping, the redhead narrowed her eyes at the grimm. She was sure that her blade had struck its leg just above the knee but the animal stood at its full height as if she had missed completely. At this distance she was able to make out more of the armor though and she did see a chip in the white material around where she suspected her blade had landed. So it was damaged, it just didn't feel it.

She swung her blade in one hand as she placed her shield on her back and the sword reformed into a gun then rose to-

Yang and Blake were waiting on a moment's notice to interfere in the battle and help Pyrrha. The Invincible Woman was putting up a fight, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that the single lethal strikes she relied on were currently being fully absorbed by the armor. Bullets, sword strikes, both caused damage but barely hurt the beast from what they could see.

What's more, Blake noticed that the wolf was barely watching Pyrrha herself. It was watching her hands and Milo. Was that why it wasn't really attacking?

"Yang." Blake asked quietly as she kept her eyes on the grimm's muzzle, the best indication of its focus. "It hasn't moved its eyes from Milo since the fight started. Is that what it did with Ruby?"

"Huh?" Yang said, pulled from her own focus on the fight. Mostly her own analysis of how Pyrrha was fighting. She looked at the beast's snout and how it followed the blade before nodding. "I guess, but it had Ruby's scythe in its hands. I didn't know if it was going to try and attack her with it so I jumped in."

The grimm was having a slightly more conflicted time. It was not really fighting brown since maiming her would mean more shepherds would be sent. This was more of an attempt to dissuade any attempts in the near future to track it down. Minor injury, that sort of thing. A side interest was the blade Brown used which moved between three different forms. The first two were relatively simple, it would either slash or stab, the third was a bit more bizarre since it launched some sort of projectile. None of them were particularly effective as they attempted to break through the beowolf in one slash. A clean kill.

That approach wasn't getting her very far, but so far the attempts to put her on the ground weren't going so well for it either. Her shield was impressive in how well it deflected blows and remained unscathed by its claws. Impressive, but a problem. How much more force could be used without harming Brown?

Did it matter if it did?

After a few more minutes Brown changed her approach. Instead of attempting a clean strike she used much more force behind her blows, striking around the head and, bizarrely, moving her blade in unpredictable ways.

Her blade would be traveling in a full arc, easily glanced away by a forearm, and then it would shift in space smoothly right under the block to nick the beowolf's neck. It also accelerated incredibly quickly, going from unmoving high or to the side to a full arc in an instant. This new force was proving more problematic so the beowolf began to actively fight back. It wouldn't let itself be whittled down by a thousand cuts.

The beowolf began shifting the assault swiftly, stopping its deflections and starting to counter.

Firstly it dodged backwards a few feet out of the effective range of Brown's sword. In time she switched to her Javelin style and held the pointed blade out like she was holding a stave, shield still at the ready protecting her frank from a lunging swipe.

The wolf was surprised Brown could move the weapon easily while maintaining direction, especially since it seemed end-heavy. A few thrusts were deflected while the grimm waited for the appropriate moment.

Moments that the woman used to rush in again. She was going to strike laterally across and the tell was in her posture. Before she could begin arcing her blade the beowolf shot forward at the same dizzying speed which had disoriented Ruby and brought a fist to bear at the outside rim of the shield. The beast weighed the same as an Ursa Major and was moving at an incredible speed. The resulting momentum tore the shield from Brown's grip and sent it flying off into the distance.

Or it would have.

The shock in the woman's face was palpable when the grimm leapt over her body to grab the shield before it impacted (and probably bisected) a tree standing not too far away.

After grabbing it by the rim the beast held the shield up to the moonlight to inspect it. Not quite a complete circle there was a sharp edge and an indent which could have a weapon rested against it. It was strong, effective. Its strikes before at the strength of a normal beowolf barely shuddered it and after striking the edge it had no blemishes. She was obviously a skilled warrior.

The grimm turned to see Brown rubbing her fingers into her wrist while her blade was lodged in the ground near her. She was injured, an understandable outcome.

She pulled her blade from the ground and it shifted rapidly between forms to expel any dirt that had clung to the metal. She seemed to be contemplating how best to attack from here. Her main defense was pulled away from her and despite the fact there was a strong pull on it trying to wrest it from the grimm's grasp it held tight.

More human magic. The steel creaked under the grip.

Without warning the human's sword became a javelin again, made a banging noise and rocketed towards the grimm. Aimed straight for the face this of all the strikes would have at least injured it but before it could reach the wolf's muzzle it used Brown's own shield to absorb the force, tossed them both into the ground, and leaned its entire weight atop it. Weapons pinned, Brown was now effectively completely disarmed.

In an instant Yellow was right beside Brown with her hands up in a fighting stance. The beowolf growled but didn't approach Brown again. The woman looked shocked that she had been disarmed, and a certain anger flowed from her.

Again the three humans stood awkwardly. Brown was unarmed and being held back by Yellow. Black was hiding though her scent was on the air, not too far away. The wolf waited until there was no movement and Brown had calmed down before it pulled the blade out of the shield and tossed it onto the ground beside the diplyon.

Victory.

It walked away for the second time that night, this time uncontested.


	8. Curiosity killed the Cat

**If you haven't seen already, as of this chapter going up the fight between Pyrrha and the Grimm has been updated. (11/14) Also, poll up on profile for future fights between the grimm and others.**

"Here's some ice."

"Thanks."

Team RWBY and Pyrrha were sitting in the team dorm room, the JNPR member sitting on one of the lower bunks with Blake, the other three sitting on the opposite side. All were carrying different expressions ranging from the obviously interested to the stinging pain of wounded pride.

Ruby had wanted to ask how it had gone but the fact the trio had entered silently, one of them injured, and no fanfare that something not-too-awesome had happened. Pyrrha was silent, and even though Yang didn't look concerned she wasn't saying anything either.

"Things didn't go well?" Weiss finally said, tired of the silence hanging over the room. She looked to Pyrrha's wrist which was now covered in a sack of ice. "Since you're hurt."

Pyrrha flushed with a bit of shame but held her tongue against saying the other two had abandoned her. It was true that she thought the best course of action was to deal with the grimm now, and that it might have been an idea to wait, but she stood by her choice. The others made theirs.

"We found the grimm on the south-east side of the cliff in a grove. It was waiting for us, probably hearing one of us while we were tracking it and it decided to just see what we did." Blake explained, standing from beside Pyrrha. The faunus wasn't sure whether she should just out and say that Pyrrha had effectively run off on her own. It would probably be unnecessary insult to Pyrrha's injury. "When it walked away-"

"I attacked it." Pyrrha sighed. "The beowolf has armor that would put an atlesian mech's to shame. Milo couldn't cut through it, only chip it. It's also strong, and heavy, and fast." Pyrrha lifted her head but her gaze remained pinned to the floor. "It was fast like taijitu's strike, heavy like an Ursa Major, strong like a Paladin Mech."

"And smart." Yang said once she was done. "Blake saw it first, the grimm spent the first five, ten minutes watching Pyrrha's sword without attacking back. It changed its blocking and dodges for each of the forms by the time it was done watching."

"Once I started using my polarity it stopped blocking and I… I was shocked. Until then it was going through the motions of defending when my blade was barely doing anything to it." She shifted her feet before looking up at team RWBY. "It tore my shield from me in a single punch. It didn't grab it or physically disarm me, it just struck the edge of Akouo with so much force that the strap that connects it to my gauntlet tore, bruising my wrist. I've used that shield to break trees, deflect a Death Seeker's claw, but nothing has ever been as jolting as that."

"It didn't attack once Pyrrha was stunned." Blake added. "It avoided her just to grab the shield and look at it. It may have never seen that particular type before, or an edged shield, but it gave Pyrrha a moment to recuperate."

"And when I used the javelin form it blocked Milo with my own shield, pinned them both to the ground, and I was… Defeated." Pyrrha pursed her lips before pushing her breath through her teeth. "Disarmed by a beowolf."

"How fast is it?" Ruby asked. She had been suspiciously quiet when normally she would have interjected to jump on the odd detail. She had a slightly pensive look on her face as her fingers scratched behind the ears of the recently-rejuvenated Zwei.

"It was moving fast enough to grab Akouo. About half as fast as you when you use your semblance. Its punch was… Probably just as fast." The gladiator said, refocusing on the youngest member of their group. "But I'm not sure. It is too heavy to be moving very quickly for very long, I think."

Then it would actually be faster than everyone bar Ruby in the room. Was that possible? Pyrrha thought about that for a moment before shaking her head. "No. That can't be right. It looked like it was moving quickly but that could have been the darkness, things look like they're moving faster than normal."

Yang glanced to the ceiling in thought before looking to Blake, who shrugged. "Fast enough to be a problem on foot, at least." The blonde said, knowing that much to be true.

The group was silent again. What exactly did they learn from this? That some grimm were stronger than others, that was proved definitively true, but they knew that anyways. It was something different… Maybe, just maybe, that there were some enemies that might be out of their reach.

Meanwhile, the wolf was considering the battle in its own way. It was still operating under the assumption that these shepherds had refrained from informing others of its location. Just another chance it was taking and thus the instinct to escape was being slowly but surely dulled by the routine of it all. In its paw was a thick branch which approximated the type of blade that it had seen being used by some humans. It was large, unnecessarily so, but that was the only way it fit within the grasp of the beowolf's long fingers. Lifting it the wolf tried to bring it down in an arc. Which it managed but only just.

After twenty of these swings it was growing slightly frustrated with the result of its attempts. The problem lay fairly intrinsically with the bone structure of the grimm. The shoulders were meant to rotate in a specific range low and laterally to allow for pouncing or lunging. Striking up or down like Brown had done meant the beast had to tilt its entire body to part of its back was exposed and _then_ swing down. It worked, but it was clumsy. It put the grimm off-balance, significantly so and that made it hardly a fighting style it could use to combat the shepherds.

Maybe if the shoulder was better? But then the problem became the forearm. It couldn't rotate like a human's, and brown had used that motion to strike twice in succession. So the sword Brown used would be impossible for a beowolf. As would those used by Black and White. What of Red's weapon?

It was a rod with a blade attached and one of the projectile weapons attached. Held with two hands or one hand? Both?

The beast lifted the branch into two paws and lifted it side to side. The weight was much different from the actual weapon but that was ignored, the ability to move it was more important. It remembered doing so days ago… So…

Same problem. With one hand it could effect a strike from above but that was a strain as a stretch and was hardly practical. Laterally, it was better since the angles might work better for the bones of a grimm. Still a bit awkward to move it above or below a certain inclination, but it was working the best for now.

Dropping the branch the grimm looked up at the sky. It was still a young night… And there was no life in the forests. There were trees, grasses, but they lacked the life of the animal. It could sense the menagerie of emotions coming from the buildings and a certain restlessness was pushing it to investigate. It had been meaning to find a nook to observe the humans from, and now could be as good as any time.

Now that it had a better idea of the patrols getting back to the campus grounds was not a very long task. Within a few minutes it was faced with the arches that mad up the aesthetic wall around the main buildings. Approaching from the side a large dome rose up into the air with a spire atop it. Going inside any of these buildings was a bit too risky even for the normally courageous beowolf.

So it skirted around the grounds with its ears at constant alert for the slightest sound of man. It was quiet, but that only put the wolf on more of an edge. All of the buildings seemed to have towers beside them as if they were helping hold them up, but the connection to the building was broken, intentionally or not it didn't know.

Regardless they were tall and easily scaled, and from there the grimm was able to get a much better view of its surroundings. Behind it rose the largest structure, a tower of some sort with glowing spheres in a landing just before the top. The tower rose out of a complex of buildings that while maintaining the same style looked as if they were built into each other, each with a slightly different roof style, and those with pyramids or spires competed to rise above one another. All was in a cool gray, one that shone almost white by the waning moonlight.

It was picturesque, but most importantly the buttresses looked like they could be used to observe from with some manner of protection from being seen by the odd passerby. It wasn't perfect, if someone were standing on the tallest tower the grimm could be seen in contrast to the darker shades of the domes. But it was unlikely there would be a 'perfect' spot since this was where the shepherds lived, they would always be a danger to the life of the beasts.

There was such a thing as caution however, and the grimm leapt back down from the spot to the ground and approached the next-largest building there, a tall building with two doors. It was long as well, fairly rectangular compared to the irregular sizes of the other buildings. Some noise could be heard from inside but nothing close to the door. Far enough that the grimm was willing to approach the building and then climb the distance up to the bank of windows above the doors.

Peering into the room there were long rows of tables with humans and faunus sitting in file eating and speaking. There were not many of them, only a dozen or so that were finishing their meals. Looking over its shoulder to the sky it was approaching the middle of the night, so the humans were probably consuming their food later than the average.

Looking up into the roof of the building from its position the wolf could already tell there would be no attempts to hide there. Smooth ceilings and well let alcoves meant that detection would require only the passing glance of any mildly intelligent being.

Further exploration of the grounds lead to finding a couple more passable locations. Despite there being a lack of grimm in the forests the amount of visibility shared between buildings was odd. One location which appeared secure was in plain view of one window or another, and that made it so that many of the candidate hiding spots were scratched off simply by glancing around. It was bizarre how many of them existed, but that might be attributed to the fact that the construction of the main mass of buildings looked fairly haphazard.

Eventually the grimm had made a full circuit of the structures. The buttresses and a few narrow alleys had proven themselves to be the only locations which could hide, if imperfectly, the beowolf. It paused near another set of fairly regularly-shaped buildings that stood on their own. A large amount of human scents emanated off of the complex and lights were lit on different levels and different sections, but the vast majority were dark.

It smelled too strong of residual negative emotions and humans to be the same as the other buildings. Even the room where the humans were eating didn't smell so strong of human. It warranted investigation.

But was it worth the risk?

Of course the answer kept falling more and more on the 'yes' side in an instinctual side. The age of the grimm forced preventative impulse, but the confidence of it was slowly starting to make it ignore that natural pessimism. And with that confidence it slid up to the side of the wall and listened closely. There were muffled sounds of speaking, bust mostly deep breathing and snoring much like a pig in its sleep.

So this was where the humans rested? That was useful knowledge, the grimm was fairly sure, but for what it could be used it had absolutely no idea. Going on a midnight massacre would play to its nature and probably be satisfying but it would not get far after that with the full force of the kingdom seeking retribution for the lives. So some restraint would need to be shown, but it was barely tempted in the first place. The benefit of age, in a way.

Actually, finding the place was better than it first thought. If the humans only returned to their place of rest during the evening hours then the rooms of the building might be empty. Not fully empty, no, to think that would be foolish, but _mostly_ empty. It would be the perfect place to hide in case it was detected elsewhere on campus since most grimm would either escape to the forest or fight to the death.

Well, possibly not, it had to admit to itself. There would need to be rooms it knew would be empty. And, if it were found in the first place there would be problems more pervasive than momentary evasion.

So did it investigate as contingency 'just in case', and in doing so possibly reveal itself? It had been risking itself doing everything it had been that night, but the danger was moderate compared to what it could have been doing in the darker corners of Vale proper. But that was hardly an excuse.

Deciding to take a middling route, it would climb along the darkest side of the building and avoid all windows, dark or not, just in case a human happened to be looking out. It wouldn't test its luck by trying to sneak a peek into the rooms, so on and so forth.

Perfectly safe.


	9. The wolf killed the scroll

It was another nice night to be out moping on a roof, and Jaune Arc was never one to miss out on something like that. Tonight though he was just waiting for a friend to get back. He was sitting on the edge of the roof and holding his chin up in his palms. Pyrrha wasn't back at the dorm room yet but had sent a message ahead she was in RWBY's room.

He was a bit worried. He believed in everyone and their abilities but it was still difficult to not be around a team member. That was what he was used to now, having everyone in team JNPR (and sometimes RWBY) around was the norm, and not having anyone – even Ren—around was weird. That and he liked being around for Pyrrha. She rarely needed any help but when she did he liked trying to be there for her, even though sometimes he didn't know what to do.

_That's being partners._ He thought to himself, smiling.

He stood then and rolled his shoulders before cracking his knuckles by bridging them and pressing up towards the sky. He let out a contented sigh before walking across the rooftop to the opposite edge. Looking across the paths towards the towers of beacon he started daydreaming.

Thirty feet above him on the next tier of balconies the beowolf stared down at the second Yellow. One of those who followed the Green, Pink and Brown. He hadn't attempted to chase the grimm during the day so it seemed likely that the human was one of the slower ones. Many of the shepherds the wolf had seen thus far had a certain velocity they were able to achieve. They were humans of slight weight that relied on their momentum to strike from what it saw, so was the human the strong without speed?

It was certainly something to consider in the future if the chance came to observe his skill. Figuring how much speed played into their abilities could give a better understanding of the race's defense on the whole. The flock didn't mirror these abilities, so what made these shepherds so able?

Thinking about that for a moment the grimm climbed further up the building to find that there was no access to the highest level of the building where the roof rose into gentle swoops of eaves. There was some awkward angles one might be able to sight something resting atop the roof but it was overall actually one of the best locales it could have happened upon for hiding.

As it snuck around the roof it found a space under the eaves which was about the same size as a human. It was awkwardly situated under the steepest part of the roof and also recessed in several feet so to actually jump down to it the grimm might have to leap all the way down to the bottom of the several story building to get back away. For an air vent which was probably too small for it, and the probable jump that would follow were easy deterrents. Living literally atop the homes of the shepherds, while a way to keep a base of operations wholly without suspicion from man, would be too dangerous to furnish with what it needed.

The grimm was pleased with the fact it had an out-of-sight area to work on the human technology. That which might be considered the most basic of amenities for a human was the groundwork for learning for the wolf. It was an impressive first step for a member of a species which barely created anything for any purpose and only hunted for the anguish of humans.

Of course the beowolf did not think along these specific lines, but the pride meant it. It was king among beowolves in its own mind even if there were none in the forests to compete with for the title. Only shepherds resided here. There were no allies, only passive adversaries like Yellow, Red, and Black. They were so far individuals the wolf counted as non-issues… Contingent on the fact that they didn't attack it.

A sort of dais which connected the wings of eaves on the building was barely enough but it would hide the grimm from plain sight. The morning would bring with it a chance to observe the humans again, and possibly if it was feeling more reckless it might take the opportunity to search through the building. Probably not, but it was an option.

As it was about to flatten itself out and wait for morning it heard some harsh words from over the eaves. It was curious enough to check since the wait until morning was going to be long enough as-is. Far below it could see the yellow hair of the same man as before, now with Brown. Both were looking over the edge of the balcony they stood on at a shining object five stories down for them, more than eight for the wolf. The two of them went indoors hastily, probably to retrieve whatever had fallen down to the ground.

This presented an interesting opportunity.

To jump from this height, while jarring, wouldn't cause injury. It would be a bit loud, the noise from the fall would create a thudding noise as the force shook windows nearby… But the object shone, meaning it was technology, meaning that it could be examined.

It had only a few seconds to make its decision. Every moment wasted was another moment the humans could see it if it jumped down. If Brown saw it she may call for assistance, waking more shepherds and making everything quite a bit more complicated. The blonde… It wasn't quite sure, it hadn't seen him doing anything before so he could either be one to hold their ground or a pushover.

Uncertain, but now actually doing something, the grimm jumped from the eaves. There was two seconds of falling and then it landed with a similar sound as if someone dropped a sack of bricks from the same height. It was heavy, there was some rattling, but it wasn't _loud_ per se.

Pulling itself up from the low crouch it used to diffuse some of the force it scanned side to side quickly to find the shining object. It snatched the item from the ground and held it up for a moment. A picture of the blond was there along with human writing. As the wolf was about to poke at one of the buttons it heard the click of a door opening.

Acting quickly the beowolf used all of its strength to toss it from ground level to the third floor, then scale the rest of the way to the balcony Brown and Blonde had been on before. Once at the top it laid flat for a moment against the wall to the left of the door just in case a human walked by. A second later the confused words of the two below could be heard riding up in the air. One, the male, was confused as the sound of underbrush being shifted could be heard while the other, Brown, sounded a bit annoyed. The two spoke for five minutes before Brown could be heard sighing and searching through the brush as well.

Once sure that neither would be looking up to the walls of the dorm the wolf swiftly scaled the rest of the way up to the eaves. Safely atop the roof the wolf looked at the device again and began lightly pulling or pushing on it.

The tactile nature of a device was something the grimm wanted to determine first. While there was a screen similar to the one it had seen when using the lift up to the top of the cliff, it also had some movement to it. The ends of it on the side could be pulled away and towards each other to a range until the white sides touched each other completely and the display disappeared. Opening it again the screen reappeared, again showing the Blonde's face and some shapes around it.

The different shapes obviously had some meaning but the semiotic nature of squares and circles meant little to the beast. It would touch a circle and the screen would change to something else with different circles and squares and letters and pictures, then one of those would be pressed, so on and so forth. It was odd, and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the movement from one set or another.

Through the night and into the early morning the grimm toyed with the device. Eventually it learned that the top-leftmost button if it was a circle returned the beast to the previous screen until it reached one where there were a few different boxes. Some of them had pictures of different items in them, something which surprised the grimm. It carefully held the device in its claws as it scrolled through images of the shepherds in different regions around Vale, intently looking into the faces of Red, Black… So on. They were all generally smiling, happy at whatever was going on.

Other things were a bit more operator-engaging. The wolf found, by accident, a function which allows it to capture the image of something directly in front of it. It had found this out when it pressed one of the buttons and after a short buzz nothing seemed to happen. When it shifted but the backdrop behind the scroll did not it only took a few attempts to actually understand the general mechanism. It recorded the dais atop the roof, the stars passing behind the spheres of the main tower, just menial things to see what was displayed. While interesting for a time that too was soon considered mastered and the attention shifted again.

One of the more surreal experiences was when clicking through it found images of all the shepherds it had met thus far as well as some individuals it did not recognize at all. They were farther down the list, which it had learned earlier could be moved through by lightly dragging a claw along the surface upwards or downwards. After looking at the eight it recognized easily it clicked on White. The box shimmered for a moment before the picture expanded to be the size of the screen.

After three or four seconds the image shrank again and fell into another square with some lettering beside it. Below was a picture of the blonde, similar size, and a line connected the two of them

The beowolf was uncertain if anything was happening for a moment before a tired and angry voice echoed out of nowhere. Recognizing it as White but surprised she was so close the beast whipped around to face her. But saw nothing. Ears twitching it realized that the sound was actually coming from the device itself. Grumbling its surprise the beast lifted the device again to hear a sigh and then a long string of tired and irritated words. Then nothing.

The image of White faded out and the picture of Blonde came back with the main screen. It was a bizarre exchange, maybe the devices could speak to one another. Since the woman was not near it had to be done through a distance somehow, though the grimm couldn't even begin to imagine what process would allow sound to travel silently from one place to another. It seemed quintessentially a contradiction.

Little else was accomplished with the device. It was clear that there were many tasks that it could perform even if what exactly it was doing wasn't clear to the illiterate wolf. Regardless, it treated the item with care and watched closely for some things it could understand. Some of the symbols appeared often, others not so much, some colors meant certain things, others seemed interchangeable. It spent the entire night fiddling with device and it wasn't until the break of dawn and seven hours of continuous use had passed that the device flashes yellow twice before shutting down.

An unwelcome surprise to the beowolf but it had found out all it could from the device in a single night. It would need to put it somewhere where the blonde could find it so that he did not continue searching. More of an investment than being a good individual, the grimm was suspicious that if anyone could be seen using their device it would be the one who had accidentally cast it from high above the ground.

So, the grimm put it back on the fourth floor balcony that the Blonde had forgotten it on before, then scurried back up to the roof to watch the slow but steady procession of students walking from the housing to… Wherever it was they went.

Meanwhile…

Jaune, sitting at breakfast with the rest of JNPR, opened his scroll and groaned, head hitting the table.

"What's got you down? You're lucky you found it again." Nora asked through bites of food.

Jaune just let out a long groan before holding up the device for his team to see. The normally smooth surface of the device was covered in innumerable tiny scratches fine like hairs but crisscrossing every which way. Jaune was happy that he'd gotten his scroll back, but couldn't the guy have _not_ decided to file his nails over it?


	10. Allies

**Short but important chapter.**

"Up at and it sergeant." The edge of a coffee mug lightly nudged against the top of my bare head, almost as shocking as the light splashing through my office window. It was welcome though and the scent managed to coax me from sleep without the normal kick to the gut it required. "Your favorite. Water."

"Fuck off." I grumbled good-naturedly as I straightened my back and rolled my shoulders, groaning in pleasure as the links in my spine and shoulders popped. Nothing like joints popping to get in the right mindset for endless desk work. I grabbed the glass and downed the contents in a single go before handing it back to the boss. "I thank ye for the drink but your cheap bribes will not make this case go by any faster."

"What'd you find?" He asked, a smile in his voice.

"Exact same thing Jacob did. Top of the fixture was cut clean off with some sort of angled blade. No witnesses, no special markings, no fingerprints." I yawned before lifting up the file off the corner of my desk and putting it between me and the window. "A high class low brow vandalism case. It'd be cheaper to just weld a new one on then pretend this rabbit goes anywhere."

"Hey, if you're done with this you can get transferred over to the Breach cr-" He started half joking before I rolled my eyes and cut him off.

"Then I am off today to see if there is any expert testimony I can scrounge up about our serial shit-disturber." I said with a mock gung-ho voice. I stood and saluted the man in charge before grabbing my jacket. "But first I am going to take a shower. 3 AM is how long I spent putting that incoherent stack of shadows seen by the elderly, next time I'm taking it home."

"Only fair." He replied, shrugging before stepping out of the office. I nodded to myself before walking to the window and peering out. The police station in Vale straddled the residential and merchant quarters of the kingdom since those were the places where the highest incidences of crime were. It gave us a nice position on a little hill, unusual for the relative flatness of the city but it did afford a nice view of the tallest of Beacon academy's spires. They looked like ghostly spikes just jutting out of the ground. Kinda nice. Pretty much the only abnormal thing to look at.

Leaving the station I made a beeline home. It was still just, what, seven or something? So I was quiet opening and closing the door to make sure Gige didn't wake up and start hollering about how loud I was blah blah blah. She liked being up early too, she just didn't like the waking up part of it. Too bad, showers need to be had after going 36 without one.

Before that, I snuck into our bedroom and opened up the personal safe. Then the second smaller one which held my 'sensitive information' for work. Pulling out two memory drives and a spare scroll I had pretty much everything I needed. Well I also needed clothes, but I could come back for those.

I took my shower in the guest bathroom so that Gige didn't have flushing the toilet as a swift slap on the wrist for waking her up. It made things easier that she liked being present when she got back at someone. If you were just a bit too far out of reach you were safe. But I lived with her so my hands were pretty much tied. That's where years of learning the comfortable roaming range of a human movement after sleep got useful. Avoiding torture by shower water imbalance was a high priority in the morning.

Cleaned off I snuck back into our room and grabbed some civvies, throwing them on before checking to see if she was still… Alright, she's lurking around the house then.

I popped into the living room and kitchen before finding her on the balcony with an orange in her hand. She tossed it over her shoulder for me to catch, which I managed, before turning around and raising a brow.

"Late night?"

"The latest. Cleaning up for kiddies is tiring work." I complained, dramatically rolling my eyes before pressing my thumb into the thin peel and pulling away the leathery skin. "It's lucky, whoever it is, a rash of vandalism cases have been popping up with kids kicking over mailboxes and stuff. Just file it in with the rest and our kleptomaniac friend is free."

Gige made a 'hmm' noise before motioning for me to hand the orange back. I gave her skeptical look and she shrugged before crossing her arms. Points for her trying to actually peel this fruit on her own, but she just couldn't with the bandages. She was patient for most other things but she loved oranges and only their nefarious peel kept her from enjoying it.

"Thanks hon." She said dryly when I tossed the fruit back to her. "Now scurry off. Wouldn't want our friend to do something stupid would we?"

"Eh, we all did and none of us are dead."

A glare.

"Yeah, yeah." I waved my hand pretending to dispel the concern before stepping forward and giving her a quick hug. "Remember to soak your arms, don't want it to start itching." I chided her in a faux tone.

She pushed me away and put half the orange in her mouth before grinning, all her teeth on display. She took a deep breath through her nose and instinctively I threw up my hands to block my line of sight from her face to my eyes and backed away. "Wgats wrog Njagha, I dod you-"

"OK, gross, bye." I grumbled before grabbing my things and exiting the house.

It was a bit of a walk to Beacon from the house since we lived in the almost-but-not-quite upper quarter, so fairly far west of the academy. I had thought about using the car but it had been so long since I walked the path up to the top. I thought it would make me nostalgic… Well, I thought that but really I was more interested in seeing if anything else had been stolen from the light stands.

Nothing, as far as I could see, and ducking down alleyways to see if there was anything amiss there found jack-nil. At least it wasn't randomly grabbing things from off the street, which would be a bit more of a problem. I had said it was a kleptomaniac but only one thing so far looked like it had been taken by a grimm. The rest was just standard kids at late night with nothing better to do.

_I wonder if the lift going up to the top still works?_ Well it would work, it was just a question of whether or not they changed the code in who knows how long. I imagine they did. Might be worth hanging around the entrance to sound it out. Eh. Maybe not, police or not lounging around 'secure areas' would be regarded with a little bit of suspicion.

So the path it was! I remembered when it still acted as the main transport road for goods, that was before they started using the hovercraft for it. A vendor used to try and situate themselves part of the way up and students would sneak off campus during their breaks to grab a snack. The man somehow got away with it for three years or something before they eventually installed the bollards at the bottom. Still was sneaking up there though, everyone thought a key had been copied to allow him access.

Walking up the path I saw a few of the members walking along, usually in pairs or groups of four or more. All smiling and chatting, even those who weren't were obviously happy with themselves. Shepherds had that effect when together, as long as there wasn't any particular strife of course.

A few looked at me with quizzing eyes. I guess they weren't used to seeing adults not from the school walking up this way? I just smiled, and they smiled, and we went out different ways. It was deceptively simple to get around that natural barrier of people's suspicions. Be cordial and as long as they don't see through it they don't ask too many questions. Having a badge also helped, Beacon like any higher learning facility had its own problems and some of them had the police involved.

I did take my job seriously of course, it just also had these _completely unintended perks._

Arriving at the top of the path I looked down that long march to the fountain and the towers beyond. The jade sigil rose far above the rest and peered down almost eerily on damn near everything above the rocky lip behind me. I scratched my nose with my middle finger attempting subtly to flip it off without getting too much attention.

I stayed off the main road though. Before I reached the arches which made up the least effective wall in the architectural history of man I split off to the direction of the forest. Some part of me wanted to spit on what remained of the coliseum walls but that would be just a bit childish. I was too old for something like that.

The forest had changed slightly over the years as some of the older specimens died and fell over, rotted and eventually were consumed by the undergrowth. It took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings but once I did I made a beeline for the northern cliff.

_Around here there had been… Ah._ The copses of trees that made up the corner of the north and eastern ridges weren't that hard to see from the open rock. What did take some doing was actually finding out which of them had traces of the grimm I was looking for. Four clusters of tree and branch and shrub later I found what I was looking for, an eviscerated street light and a low rock.

_Already tinkering… _I picked the item up and flipped it over to check the inside. _And dissecting. This one must be pretty far along then. I'll need to get the keys to the lab sooner than later so this one can start making actual progress._

I set it down the same way it was laying before and reached into my bag. Pulling out the scroll and two memory sticks I set them on the stone at a bit of an angle. It was more of an aesthetic thing than anything else and that's how I'd seen them long ago. I listened for anyone moving in the foliage nearby…

Pleased that there was nothing amiss in the area I snuck back out and headed back to the city. I'd done my deed for the day. Now to go help out the breach crew… G'damn.


	11. Lessons

**Another chapter since the one earlier today was so short.**

"Stop! Running! Away!" Ruby shouted through the forest as the she lost sight of the grimm for the umpteenth time. She was getting tired of this little back and forth. It wasn't like she was doing anything wrong! She just wanted to see the grimm. It just walked off every time she tried to approach and when she followed it would move faster. If she started to jog it would speed up a little bit more, so on until Ruby was almost using her semblance.

The beowolf was just completely uninterested. Or scared. Did she annoy it? No, she was being cheerful. She wasn't waving blades around like Pyrrha was.

_Waaaaait. He likes weapons._

The reason why she was out in the woods looking for the resident reclusive possibly-murderous monster was because she was interested. It had been four days since anyone had last seen it, and even Zwei seemed to have trouble sniffing it out. Nothing weird had happened, nobody had been hurt, and aside from Jaune's scroll being scratched up a bit (which she had a hunch about) nothing bad had occurred. So obviously the grimm wasn't up to anything. Well, it wasn't right now.

Drawing Crescent Rose she extended the scythe completely before balancing it arc-down on the soft forest floor. She waited for a couple minutes before sighing and starting to tap her foot. "Come on, I don't just let anyone touch my weapon."

Her voice was swallowed by the forest.

Scanning left and right she eventually turned a full circle to see the beowolf standing on its hind legs within some underbrush, watching. It didn't approach, but also didn't move when she looked at it.

_Well, that's a bit creepy_. She thought to herself before taking a few steps away from the scythe. She motioned to it with her hands then pocketed them and took a few more steps back. _Just don't decide you need to practice on me._

The wolf appeared conflicted as it approached. It took a few steps through the bushes quiet as can be before tilting its head questioningly towards Ruby. It raised its muzzle to the air and took a deep breath, probably to see if anyone had come with her. She hadn't really told anyone so she didn't think anyone was around.

The grimm lowered its nose again and approached her with a slow gait, eyes on her until it was within twenty feet. It looked to her then the scythe before motioning with a paw for her to step back.

Pleased with the fact she had actually gotten the beowolf to approach her she did as asked and took two steps back. It was like trying to pet a wild dog or a new cat. They just had to be given there space and the proper encouraging. This was one dog that Ruby didn't think she was going to be playing fetch with though. It was already scary smart, and she was sure that somehow it already knew what being patronized felt like.

Once she was about six feet from the scythe the grimm finally walked all the way to the weapon. It peered at crescent rose again in much the same way it had when she had first seen it a week ago. It looked closely at the handle through the firing mechanism to the blade itself before looking up at Ruby. She just waved, and it was apparently accepting of that response.

It grabbed the handle of the scythe in one paw and swung it from its position vertically to sideways in front of it. Grabbing it with the other hand just below the 'head' of the scythe it brought its eyes close to examine the materials that the weapon was made from. Some of it was cool and heavy while others seemed light and the same temperature as the surrounding air.

From Ruby's perspective it was practicing unsafe weapon handling but if what Pyrrha said was right even if the weapon collapsed to its carrying form the beowolf probably wouldn't be to too hurt. Even now to test the sharpness of the blade it was running a finger along the twin edges… Something which would cut the fingers of a human or faunus.

_Grimm really don't use any weapons, do they?_ She thought to herself. She had fought a lot of grimm in her time and none of them even used rocks. Some would hide but that was the extent of it she supposed. So that might explain why weapons were so interesting to it. It had fought humans before and seen other grimm fall to them, so something which would let humans who unarmed pretty weak, fight grimm, might seem cool. _Well, if it's doing that then it might be learning how to teach other grimm how to use weapons. But… Wait, am I teaching it how to fight people?!_

She was brought out of her thoughts by the grumblings of the grimm. It was holding the scythe with one hand while pointing to something in the firing mechanism. Ruby wasn't sure what it meant until she saw the empty slot where the magazine was loaded.

"Ah, you don't need those." The huntress-to-be said, waving her hands 'no'. The wolf continued to stare at her blankly, obviously not catching on. _Does it not understand 'no' or does it not understand what I mean?_ _Probably not that smart._ "No."

To her surprise the beowolf looked back to the weapon without making any more noise.

_So… Maybe it does._ She paused on that thought before shaking her head. _No, even a bird could understand words if you trained it. It's just normally smart for an animal, super-smart for a grimm._

For a few more minutes the grimm continued to draw the ends of its fingers along the weapon and stare at the smallest detail. Ruby wasn't sure what it was looking for in the weapon. Yeah, there was a lot in it. There were different mechanisms to change the shape of it, compensate for the crazy speed it got up to, things like that. But that was all under the surface. It couldn't admire craftsmanship when it barely knew what it was in the first place. She was perplexed.

Eventually it stopped and held the blade in one hand while moving to a nearby tree. Ruby wasn't worried about the grimm harming Crescent Rose since it was so robust so she watched with curiosity as it rested the blade perpendicular to the trunk. Its hand was on the right side of the tree holding the scythe while the blade rested against the left side. Was it trying to do a standing cut through a tree? The blade was sharp enough that if enough force was used it would work, but to do it from not moving and across the fibers of the tree was a bit… Silly?

Before the grimm could try Ruby walked forward a few steps before stopping to check and see what the wolf would do. It paused and dropped the weapon down slightly to rest it on its outside edge before turning to look at her. Its eyes were narrowed in suspicion but after a moment it stepped aside and looked at her expectantly.

Ruby picked up her weapon before taking a half-step to reposition herself for the best angle at striking the target. She waved the grimm over which did as asked after a moment of confusion.

It stood a few feet behind Ruby which gave her the room she needed to comfortably raise the scythe into the air at an angle and… Swiftly bring it down at a perfect angle. The momentum of the blade did the rest as it slipped through the tree. Unlike a single-edged blade which would have let the tree slide apart the twin edges in the curve of the scythe removed a thick slice. The tree immediately tumbled to the side with a crackling of wood and branches.

Pleased, even if it was easy for her, she turned to see an Atlesian knight staring at her. The grimm was nowhere to be seen, thankfully, but soon she heard the sound of Goodwitch playing through the mech's speakers.

"_Ms Rose, I do not know what you are doing, so please come to my office so we may speak about how to respect the nature around the school premises?"_

_Fiddlesticks._

While Ruby was making the solemn trek back to the school buildings the beowolf was returning to its hide out in the trees. It had managed to keep its little workstation out of the sight of humans, the sole exception being whoever had put the devices there three days prior. It had been suspicious of them and hadn't used them for two days, but cracked on the third.

The screen similar to the one it had stolen from the Blonde but significantly larger and a better fit for its hands. Unlike that one, though, this one had a very simply explanation of how to use it with cartoon renderings of human fingers tapping on different symbols for different effects. Some of it the grimm already knew from the experimentation it had done before, but a few options were completely new. Some like being able to quickly activate something without returning to the origin were useful but others like changing the noise it made were a bit less so.

But the truly useful thing, the suspicious thing, was the set of objects that came with it. Two small slotted items could be inserted into the device to show one of two things. The first was a selection of human symbols that when touched would make a noise. After some toying about it became clear that the speech was the repetition of the word, something that was verified by choosing longer and longer strings of letters and the speaking taking longer and longer.

It was interesting, but on its own didn't help. That is where the second item came into play.

The second device when connected to the screen showed a series of scenes with different outcomes depending on the word chosen and did not play sound. Early on it became clear that if you selected two characters, the character in green wouldn't do something shown in a short video. If you selected the three characters it would continue as normal.

The two together created an indispensable resource. Using the choices of the scene it could learn what a series of characters meant after trial and error, then use the speaking device to hear what it sounded like. It was impossible to repeat what the device said since the beowolf had no vocal cords but it could listen, and in that listening remember.

It hadn't had much time to search the city for technology because of that. Two days observing humans, one working its way through the device, and the morning had been interrupted by Red appearing nearby and hollering after it. To be fair the grimm was starting to understand what made up the blade, if only in general terms and the morning was not actually wasted. Just delayed with less important information.

It sat at its rock and opened up the character differentiation program and watched the scene. Looking at the commands available which it knew the grimm would spend the next twenty minutes observing each outcome for differences and similarities. It would take a while, but it had time.

**oooooooo**

Yang and Blake were standing on the very top of the campus residences. Yang was holding up Jaune's incredibly scratched scroll to see if the perspectives matched up.

"Yep. Whoever took the pictures must have been up here." Yang said as she closed the device and put it in her satchel for safe keeping. "Hard to believe it. It's like a hundred feet up here."

"We could do it, someone else could too." Blake reminded Yang, who shrugged. "But it is weird that they'd go all the way up here to take some pictures. Seems likely that whoever did wasn't in their right mind."

"I think the trying to slice the scroll to death kinda makes that clear."

They both stood in silence for a moment before Yang made a humming noise.

"It wouldn't be so close to the campus." The faunus countered before her partner could say anything.

"Well, if it _was_ its huge claws could easily scratch up a scroll."

"It could, but so could anyone wearing a gauntlet."

"And climb all the way up here…"

Blake took a deep breath before sighing. "It's supposed to be smarter than this. If it is this close to the dorms then it is writing its own death warrant. We might not go out of our way to deal with it but there are second and third years here who would be _more_ than happy to kill a grimm on their doorstep."

"But this is the one place where even Zwei couldn't find it." Yang pointed out. "Up here there's nowhere for a huntress to see it and none of the students would think to check. It's also so high up that it could see everywhere without anyone being able to see it clearly. If it were watching us this is the safest place outside the forest."

Blake hummed, not convinced. "It seems an unnecessary risk."

"What, do you have a weakness for puppies?" Yang joked, poking Blake in the ribs. "Big ones who are centuries old and covered in an exoskeleton like a buuuug?"

"Hah hah." Blake replied. "I'm barely used to Zwei now thank you very much."

"You're still worried."

"We all are."

"True."

A few more moments of silence passed before Yang's scroll started playing a happy tune. She pulled it out and answered.

"Yang?"

"Rubes?"

"Yeah, let Weiss know that if I'm not at lunch it's because I'm planting trees." Her tone was dripping with misery. Not true misery, just the same tone a child uses when they're faced with something they _really_ do not want to do.

"Why are you planting trees?" Yang asked, a brow rising into her bangs in confusion.

"I cut down a tree trying to show the wolf how to use a scythe. One of the patrols found me so now Glynda has me digging holes as punishment." It sounded like she was begging for something but the sibling had no idea what. She did find it incredible that the school was going to make Ruby plant trees as punishment for cutting one down. "So I might not be back until late."

"Alright, I'll let her know."

"Thanks."

"Also sis?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time let us know when you're going to play with the super intelligent monster, alright?"

"Alright…" At least she sounded guilty there…

Blake was close enough to have heard the entire exchange and smiled herself. "Our fearless leader has managed to get in trouble for mundane things despite her own best efforts."

_Let's hope she keeps it that way._

**Remember the poll on the profile, I'll be deciding over the weekend who to include in the fight.  
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	12. Outreach

_Thud, thud, thud._

_Bmp, bmp, bmp._

_Thud, thud, thud._

_Bmp, bmp, bmp._

It was the best part of her jog, when the music and the footsteps were _just_ in sync. She never planned it so when the music switched and that first beat landed right when her foot did… It made her excited. How could it not? It was one of those _nice_ things that just happened.

Taking a deep breath she smiled as she continued to pound the path through the trees picking up speed. She might not be the fastest of the team but she could keep the pace up and hold it there for as long as she needed to. Chasing the bass and grinning like a damned fool she started to hum along to the bouncing melody, completely uncaring of the amount of noise she was making.

Music too loud it could be heard in the trees around her and powerful strides required a powerful impact. Galloping horses would have made less noise.

Turning the last corner of her lap Yang caught sight of Blake leaning against a tree, book in one hand and stopwatch in the other. They were keeping times since it was admittedly one of the best ways to get Yang to work harder. Competition, including competing with herself was enough to improve her skills faster than if she was working without a goal.

She pushed herself further for the final stretch and sprinted as hard as she could to the goal line. She was certain this time would be her best yet.

"Fifteen seconds slower." Blake called as Yang continued on for the next lap, not even pausing.

"How?" Yang turned mid-stride and skidded to a halt kicking up a small plume of dust behind her. She placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at the Faunus playfully. "Are you sure you didn't miss-click on the stopwatch?"

"I'm certain." Came the reply as the brunette closed her book and turned the face of the clock to show the time. 5:23. Definitely slower than her previous time by a fair margin, and by enough that even if the faunus had made a mistake she would have recovered faster than that. "I even got through more pages of my book. It's definitive, you have a limit on how long you can keep running for."

"Impossible. Fifty laps is hardly the limit of my abilities." Yang complained as she struck a pose flexing her arms before dropping them and pretending to mope like Ruby did, arms straight down and shoulders rolled forwards. "I have failed us." She sounded devastated before giving a dramatic sigh and stretching. "More laps then."

"I think that's enough for today." Blake said as she approached the fighter. "I'm nearly through my book and I want to save some of it for tomorrow." She pulled out her book again and held it spine up out towards the blonde so she could see only a few pages were left in the last novel in a series Blake loved. "You've set a new record for yourself to beat tomorrow, let's pack it in."

"Yeah, yeah." Yang walked over to the trees and pulled out her duffel bag. She pulled her soaked top off and replaced it with an off-yellow track jacket with her emblem emblazoned across the back. She tossed her running shoes in as well as her socks and replaced them with some sneakers. Changed out of most her running things she pulled the bag onto her shoulder and jogged up to Blake.

The faunus was staring at the obstruction which was blocking most of their path. The grimm was sitting on its haunches in the path with almost expectant eyes. Somehow she wasn't surprised.

The grimm had developed a tendency of finding them whenever they were in the area of its hiding spot. If any of the members of team RWBY walked by they would catch sight of the beowolf but it rarely approached, just watched what they were doing. Ruby claimed that it approached her, but the rest were fairly skeptical. It did tend to just stare. None of them were really willing to try and bribe it with weapons to get it to come closer.

"Huh." Yang hummed before raising her hand and making a waving motion with her hand, simultaneously 'hello' and 'move'. "We're headed out so… Could you move?"

The beowolf tilted its head in what looked to be thought. It was looking at Yang's bag intently like it needed something. Yang had no idea what since all that was in there was sweaty clothing and some towels. A bit useless for a grimm which was very much so not her size and from what she knew of the species didn't sweat. Or secrete anything aside from saliva. They didn't even bleed when cut so…

"Guess we just walk around it." Yang said, shrugging. Whatever the wolf wanted she didn't have it. She took the lead and walked right past it. She walked about as close to it as she could and found that although it shifted slightly away it didn't actually step out of the way.

Once they were past the grimm and well on their way the twitching of Blake's 'bow' let Yang know that they still had company. The faunus glanced to her with a slightly concerned expression which she answered with a shrug. The pup was following them home, but hopefully it would decide to give up before they got within sight of the school buildings.

After the pair plus one had been walking for about five minutes Yang stopped, turned, and quirked a brow at the grimm which had been following in near-silence. It just stared back, unabashed by the fact it had been caught following them. It simply continued walking for a little bit and pointed its nose once again at Yang's bag. It wasn't sniffing the air or anything so it looked like it was indicating the actual thing itself, not the contents.

"Ready to play charades with a huge wolf-man?" Yang asked her partner before dropping her bag in front of her and opening the zipper. "Because it doesn't look like it's going to be giving up until we hit the dorms. Then it'll probably just wait on the roof."

"Alright, I'll sit out this round." She looked woefully at her book which looked like it was going to die a pitiful death over the course of only two afternoons.

Yang waved her off before turning her attention back to the beowolf, who sat on its rear and waited.

"I guess you don't know what charades is." Yang said, tapping her chin with the crook of her index finger. "That's going to be a problem."

_Well, it will probably just stare intently at what it wants like it probably has been doing for the last fifteen minutes._

So she unzipped the bag and shifted through her things to check and see if something weird had fallen in when she wasn't looking. _Shirt… Extra sweats, socks, socks I should have taken out two days ago, shorts… Nope, nothing of a mystical nature._

Pool of objects now set at _everything she had_ she started pulling out everything one at a time. There wasn't much to be embarrassed about in front of an ancient grimm so old shirts and socks that needed cleaning were raised into the air then discarded In a small pile to her side in short order. It was surprisingly fast actually, the grimm would just look then shake its head slightly to everything shown without actually looking too closely at them. _At least it knows how to say shake its head 'no'._

Soon the bag was empty and Yang was left with a pile of her clothes in the dust and an intently staring beowolf.

"I don't know what you want. My gauntlets aren't in here if that's what you want to look at." Yang sighed. She was just about to give up on the grimm when it moved forward to the bag and pulled it to itself for a closer look. "Told you, it's empty."

The wolf ignored that as it lifted the bag up, eyes seeming to scan for something or other before it let out a huff and put it down again. Lifting two claws it carefully held one end of the bag before pulling on the zipper to seal the top.

It then pointed down at the empty bag with its muzzle.

"I'm not… Ah…" Yang turned to tell Blake that she had figured it out but the faunus was curled up in a near fetal position with her eyes wide. _She is really into that._ Trashy romance, of course. The faunus had kept her secret vice quiet for a few weeks but eventually it came to light. Embarrassment eventually turned to quiet pride in the collection. It was still weird to see the normally prideful (but not in a bad way) woman so moved by crappy writing. "Nevermind."

The grimm was trying to put the duffel bag on when Yang turned back to it. The wolf was trying to put the strap over the front of its chest, across from its right shoulder to below the left arm. It worked, kinda, though it was sitting at a bit of an awkward angle and the straps weren't a good fit. But it worked and the beowolf seemed pleased.

"You just want the bag?" Yang asked, scratching her head. "I guess I could get you one… But why do you need it?"

The grimm was having half-luck here. It looked like it had gotten its whim across what Yellow was saying completely flew over its head. Pieces of the sentence made sense but the order of words could mean different things. Also some words as far as it knew meant the same thing. The tone was good, she was making asking a question, a rhetorical one. A week of staring at videos had made understanding a scene useful, the practical application was not going so smoothly.

Tugging the bag off the grim set it back on the ground gently as if the fabric was somehow fragile. It gave up for now, trying to work its way through the rest of what it wanted to request would take too long and the humans were going somewhere. It bowed its head in thanks before turning and starting to lumber away. It heard Yellow call after it with another question but it ignored it for now. It would head back to the copse for now and see if another approach might work better for getting a point across.

"Get back here mutt!" Yang called but didn't move to make chase. She just pursed her lips before putting her clothes back into her bag. She started mumbling to herself, "Now I know what it wants, just not what it wants it for."

Later the same day the grimm approached the outside edge of the academy and circled until it found its normal infiltration angle. A few times over the past couple weeks it had used this route in order to avoid the usual comings and goings of the humans. At certain times of the day more movement would be going on whereas at other times the paths would be swarmed with moving clusters of people going one way or another.

Now, it was a bit later in the day when the paths and roads were all but completely deserted. It had chosen this time not for the safety of it per se but the fact it afforded more room for error. It was carrying the devices with it in one hand, careful to not crush the screen or inserts as it ran on three paws. It first entered by the 'wall' of arches that surrounded the buildings. It waited there for a moment to check and see if there was any movement up in the tower, and finding none it dashed the two hundred feet from the arch to the first set of buildings. Listening and keeping a nose to the air it sidled along the walls until it had a clear line of sight to the next free standing building.

It zig-zagged closer to the main complex until it was within effective sprinting distance. The target was one of the buttresses that stood tall above the ground. They were perfect for checking for human movement while also remaining fully out of sight thanks to the distance and angle. There were three that could be moved to, and the furthest one afforded the most direct route to the dormitories thanks to the stone bridge which connected it to another tower.

It was a bit far for a mad dash though, especially one which would be off-balance thanks to it not having both hands available. It was the only way to make good progress to the dormitory though, as going to the other towers would just be a delay. It would need to climb high enough up that it would be out of sight, then just scale back down again to run the rest of the way.

Decisions, decisions.

Eventually it decided to go for the third tower. It dashed across the cobblestones and reached the tower in good time, but as it was pulling itself up the stone a small piece of rock was dislodged and fell to the ground. It ignored it and continued to climb until it heard a distinctly questioning grunt coming from below it. Looking down it saw the Blonde picking up the rock. It had a split second to either try and swing itself around the column to hide itself or wait and see what the human would do. If he acted the same as Red and her cohort had been recently then there would be no issue.

Of course nothing was ever quite simple when Jaune Arc was around.

The blonde looked up to see where the stone had come from, presumably the tower and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. Once his eyes had adjusted they widened once he realized that the grimm RWBY had been talking about was _literally on campus, not just 'on campus'_.

"Wh-why are you here?" He half-whispered, half-shouted, whipping his head left and right to see if anyone else was around to see. Seeing nobody he looked back up and… Found nothing. "What. But."

He ran around the other side and the beowolf still wasn't there. He made a full circle around the tower before stepping away and tilting his head. _I'm not seeing things, am I? I mean, big white armored thing, red marks like a __**grim**__, rocks falling…_

"Mr. Arc, might I ask what you are doing?" The tapping of a toed boot let Jaune know he was in for a doozy trying to explain this away. Turning, there was Glynda, brows raised in query.

"Ah. Nothing." Jaune smiled, his neck flushing as he tried to think of a good excuse. "Just admiring the architecture. Don't take enough time to look at that sort of thing. Nice to just look at it sometimes, you know?"

He started awkwardly giggling, that with his subpar explanation seemed to not impress the huntress who looked simultaneously amused and skeptical. She said nothing and walked past Jaune without raising any fuss. Arc sighed and checked that the professor was out of sight before running to a better position to look up at the rising buttresses.

Looking carefully he saw nothing at first before catching the eyes of the beowolf who was now clinging onto the side of the main building. It looked like it was waiting but barely wasted a moment once it could see Jaune. It dropped out of sight, not just moved down, but literally _fell_ from some distance up. It surprised him for a moment before thinking to himself _super-grimm can probably fly, can't they? Scratches up my stuff but can soar like a dang bird. Hey, wait, it's the one who wrecked my scroll, isn't it!?_

Suddenly rejuvenated he dashed from his position to try and catch up to the grimm who had vandalized his stuff. It was a bit difficult though as even as he saw the grimm appear again it disappeared from view. He walked slowly as if he was going to try and sneak up on it but by the time he reached the dorms he had no idea where the wolf was. He was sure he saw it climbing around the side of the school only minutes ago but now it was nowhere to be seen.

He spent another four minutes looking before giving up and heading to RWBY's dorm. Knocking twice it was only a couple seconds before Blake opened up and greeted him.

"So, does it come on campus often? Because I thought you guys were only joking before." He opened dryly. "Because it nearly knocked me out with a rock when it was climbing around near the first year wing."

"Probably twice a week, that's a guess though." Blake replied, unmoved. When Jaune used that tone he wasn't really offended, more exasperated. That _did_ make up a good 50% of all his emotions. Varying amounts of reluctance. The faunus' brow creased slightly. "We told you all a few days ago when we found evidence it was spending a few nights on the roof."

"_THE ROOF?!"_ Jaune nearly screeched before biting down on his tongue, stepping into the room and making a rather wide range of unrelated hand movements. It was like he was trying to recapture his calm, bottle it, and force it back down his gullet. "You didn't say that?"

"That was a question, and the answer is that we said it was staying on the top floor which you need to climb to. Pyrrha, Ren and even Nora listened." Blake was trying her best not to criticize Jaune, he had been a bit out of it that day.

"Ah… Right…" The blonde sighed and squeezed his eyes tight. He remembered something like that. Kinda. Vaguely. Maybe not. He kinda tried to believe that the grimm was just staying out in the woods and not coming here. He had nightmares for a few nights when Pyrrha had lost. He didn't admit that but inside his own mind he could accept that that may or may not have factored into him missing something obvious. Like a grimm literally on campus. "Sorry."

The faunus shrugged. He was sincere. A bit out of it, yes, but still sincere. "I'll check on it, alright? Don't worry about the wolf, it hasn't attacked anyone and looks like it's more interested in what we do than what we taste like."

A couple minutes later and Blake was scaling the side of the building with gambol shroud on her hip. Not for defense, more out of habit. At least that's what she told herself. She and Weiss were the two members of RWBY that were still a bit uncomfortable with the concept of a grimm having the freedom to roam the kingdom. She didn't have as much of a reason as Weiss, who hadn't seen it aside from a passing glance weeks ago. Blake had actually seen the wolf show a better nature, something which was impressive, but still had some deep-seated reservations.

She'd overcome them. Yang was able to deal, so would she. It would just take some work.

**AN:** Poll closes tonight PST, though I'll probably keep looking at it. I've been pre-writing some of the stuff for chapter 14 based on the most popular choices though so any input between now and Tuesday evening will probably influence what happens.

Also today we hit 2.5k views! Pretty awesome! Thanks for sticking with me readers and thanks for all the support you all have been showing :D


	13. Night Classes

Blake was expecting the grimm to be on top of the dorms but hadn't particularly _wanted_ it to be there. All the practical reasons for why it shouldn't be there existed, things like possibility of being spotted, the poor footing which could lead it to make excessive noise, so on, so forth. There was also the practical problem of having to deal with a canine grimm, something which was a bit less than ideal for a cat faunus. No personal reasons, just instinct. It made things just a little bit awkward. She trusted it, mostly, she just didn't really feel comfortable with it like Ruby or Yang did.

And that's why when she pulled herself over the edge of the roof she let out a bit of a sigh. The wolf was sitting on its haunches with its ears perked, probably listening to something in the building. It was a bit pointless since the beast didn't understand language from what the Faunus had seen. It could indicate things but what it wanted from an object or person was unclear. Well, that's what she knew from what Yang had said. Blake had seen the grimm just about as many times as Yang but hadn't prodded the grimm for information before. Wasted time, probably.

"You really shouldn't keep testing your luck." Blake warned. She spoke because standing in silence with the grimm as it tried to get its point across would have been incredibly awkward. She'd follow Yang's example here, maybe it could understand some things? "What do you want?"

The grimm looked as if it was thinking for a moment. It tilted its head to one side for a moment before picking a scroll up off the ground and activating it. Blake was about to ask it if it had stolen that one but held her tongue. The answer to that was undoubtedly 'yes' and asking would yield no results. She watched curiously as the beowolf picked up a memory extension and slotted it into the screen.

_Alright, that's a little bit more suspicious. It couldn't have stolen that from a store, could it?_ As she was thinking about that the grimm approached on three limbs carefully like some sort of dog-gorilla. She took a half step backward and it immediately stopped and tilted its head again. _Weiss isn't this jumpy about the grimm and she's seen it twice._ Blake mentally chastised herself before approaching to see what it was trying to show her.

_Red finish? That's not something they hand out here._ The faunus took the offered device and checked it quickly to see where it could have come from. The white style was common and often handed out to students since they were high-utility and fairly robust. They were expensive mostly for their ability to detect the aura around it and turn it into a reading a hunter or huntress could use on the fly in combat. Red ones like this were often used by law enforcement or experienced hunters. It lacked the aura detection and that allowed it to have stronger shielding. _What has it been up to that it found a military-grade scroll? Someone would notice it had gone missing and used internal tracking to get it back._

Focusing again on the screen itself she was surprised to see it was… A kid's learning program. Specifically one for the deaf. It helped them learn what words meant in context by playing a little scene then letting someone select a word during the scene to see what it would do. The green outlined person was the one influenced so it was really difficult to miss what was going on. She'd seen advertisements for it online every once in a while and sometimes ads ran for it before vids… She was starting to mentally cut herself off when a question popped up because there would be no answer.

When she looked back up to the grimm it seemed to nod before taking the scroll back and inserting another memory extension. It looked at the screen for a moment before poking at a few things with some intent. _So it made good use of Jaune's scroll when it had the chance. _

She was surprised when a smooth and slightly accented voice said 'dictionary' in a deliberate way. The grimm snuffled before holding the tablet out for Blake to see. One the screen was a listing of words in alphabetical order with definitions. It was, as the voice clip had said, a dictionary. She nodded absentmindedly and swiped across the screen to see that it was actually a very detailed dictionary-thesaurus-encyclopedia. Selecting the word apple gave a general definition, synonyms, antonyms (somehow), and a long entry on what apples were and where they were grown, so on and so forth.

She had to return to the home screen to check the brand, but once she was there the emblem of the Remnant Compendium further compounded the oddity. It was an expensive resource and renowned for being an excessive reservoir of knowledge that included texts that came from antiquity. She wanted one of these but her scroll didn't have nearly the capacity for it. Hell, she was surprised an external drive had the capacity for it.

The grimm still looked a bit expectant so she spoke this time. "Yes, it's a dictionary."

It grumbled it's agreement as Blake continued to poke around the device. _One contact, zero personalized settings, no files, no music, no net history. It has literally nothing in it. _That was impressively bizarre. She had managed to keep from asking any questions rhetorical or otherwise until now but she had to shake her head. "How did you break into a factory to steal a newly minted scroll?"

Handing the device back she looked at the grimm expectantly. It of course didn't do anything because it didn't know what was being asked of it. After a moment she pantomimed using the device before pointing to the grimm, which huffed again before doing whatever it was doing. It sat on its haunches and turned so that Blake could see if she stood at an angle.

It started with the scenes. At the menu where the player could choose the scene fifteen of a hundred had been completed, according to the counter at the top of the screen. It chose one that it had already done and watched intently as the scene played out. It showed a little girl walking up to the counter of a fast food restaurant ordering some fries then leaving. It was fairly short, probably thirty seconds, and when it was done it returned to the start. A black bar along the bottom showed five words that could be chosen.

As the girl approached the door the grimm selected 'close' which made the doors slam shut, the girl walked into them and the scene paused again asking if it wanted to return to the beginning of the scene. It was fairly simple, and the grimm seemed to understand since it used the end of a finger to circle around the door. It selected the word and copied it, though it checked by putting the word into the scroll's search box to check. It spent twenty seconds checking each character to see if they were right.

Certain, it unloaded the scenes and loaded the dictionary. It typed the word in manually while using the word it had pasted as a guide. It would check to make sure an entry would show up then to Blake's confusion emptied the search results. It returned to the main screen and then started leafing through 'manually' in the dictionary format. It approached the 'c's and then compared the second letters to the 'l' until it found all the words that started 'cl'. It took a good minute but eventually it found close the manual way.

Having now found it twice it pressed a speaker icon and the same smooth voice from before said 'close'. It played the same word four times before looking to Blake who stared back for a moment before getting the implied request.

"Close." She repeated. The grimm seemed pleased before looking down at its scroll and collapsing it. It looked expectantly at Blake who nodded. "Same thing." Blank. "Yes, closed."

The grimm was pleased and returned to its work to find another example. Blake watched for a few minutes before she came to believe that this was intentionally set up. By having the child's scenes and the dictionary the wolf would eventually learn language. It would take a while and would be crude but the understanding would eventually develop. It also would explain why it had access to the materials. It would be impossible for a beast to find an untouched scroll and even more so to purchase and activate the programs. Someone had gone out of their way to invest money in the wolf.

Who? In all of Vale teams RWBY and JNPR were the only ones that knew there was a grimm inside the walls. At least they should be. Of course the scroll disproved that. There was a chance that the beowolf had come across all of it in a fluke but that seemed incredibly unlikely. So someone found the grimm and decided that it needed to learn, and in deciding that they must have known that it was ancient.

So a teacher from one of the academies or a hunter. Probably someone on campus then, but who?

Her ruminations were going nowhere fast so when the grimm prodded her so it could demonstrate its process again. She watched, distracted, as the grimm tried to puzzle out a much more difficult scene that had the words 'stop', 'go', 'yes', 'no'. It knew what yes and no meant but was having trouble discerning what the difference was to their parallels. They seemed to have similar results despite the fact they were obviously different words. She tried to point out the differences after a while when it was obviously struggling, to minimal success.

Over the next half hour or so she determined a few things about learning a language when you had no concept of language. First, imperatives with nuance were almost indistinguishable from other imperatives without nuance, and they were nearly impossible to explain in simple terms, so it was better to just lump them all together. Nouns were easy, an apple was an apple. Just don't try and explain why a fruit was somehow all of those things. Verbs in general were easy, keep them simple. Running and dashing and sprinting all meant the same things in general, just try to keep them straight. Finally, the only adjectives worth explaining were colors.

In fact the colors were fairly useful. It used colors to refer to people, Blake herself as Black, Weiss as white and so on. Mostly based off of hair color as it could see, which she decided worked just fine. Actual names would work better, but she left that for now. Jaune and Sun probably would find being called Yellow 2 and 3 annoying after a while.

By the end of the hour she was actively trying to teach the grimm some of the concepts with basic luck. She had a bunch of nouns nailed down, some basic verbs, a few color adjectives, enough that they could command and query of the wolf easily. It remained that it couldn't speak, but there was no getting around that. It didn't even try to speak as some animals did in movies, it just listened and huffed or grumbled its yes and no. Which were actually surprisingly clear since they sounded functionally similar most the time.

The scroll beeped to let them know it was low on power and the screen flashed twice. _How long has it had this?_ More questions she was asking herself. _Three week battery life and it's used all of it up. Hm._

Blake was feeling better about the grimm after doing the teaching but it was still a bit discomforting to let it know where they slept. Eventually her better nature won and she took the scroll in her hands. She put in her contact info, Ruby's and Yang's. They were mostly just in case since she was planning on doing something specific. She pulled her own scroll out and started a video call which the grimm answered without any hesitation. _Probably the shiny 'answer call button'. _

She jumped down from the roof to the dorm window, sliding inside before walking to the bathroom to grab a mirror. In the screen she could see the almost confused gaze of the beowolf who seemed to be shifting in place.

Mirror in hand she walked to the window again and found the charger which she used to keep her scroll powered during the night. Taking the cord she set it on the sill then carefully placed her scroll there and plugged it in. The mirror now came into play as she attempted to position it so the grimm could see it was being plugged in too. She then switched from camera display to screen display and activated a cursor to circle the power indicator which was now yellow and showing a small charging animation.

She could hear the wolf make a sound of understanding. It didn't move, probably because it could hear the sounds of people exiting their dorms to head to dinner. Instead Blake climbed back up the building and took the scroll from it. She pointed to the sun and made a circular motion which she had managed to get across as sign language for day and stopped when her finger was pointing to where the sun would be in the morning, then pointed down.

The grimm mirrored it in acknowledgement, which actually surprised Blake. Not because it did so, that was expected since she managed to teach time of day to it in terms of a hand, but how well it did it. Beowolves had a lot of lateral motion in their arms but not a lot of vertical, and the wolf had just made a full circle easily, something that Blake was pretty sure should be impossible. _An evolutionary trait?_ She guessed. This was the first time she had seen any evidence aside from the white armor. Internally shrugging she inclined her head to the grimm and waved a goodbye, which it returned.

They parted ways then, Blake off to dinner and the Grimm to do whatever it did during the night.

**AN:** Chapter 14 next where the influence of the polls shall be exercised! So far it looks like Yang and Glynda are going to be involved. Atlas is only a point behind, and Coco/Ozpin are only two. Regardless, it shall be exciting :D


	14. REDUX: Spar, Escape

**AN:** So based off of some hard-hitting advice I got, I'm going to be changing chapter 14. And thus, everything after chapter 14. Yeah, I know, 'whaaaat?', but it should happen. I didn't like where it was going and the setup from this is much better. I could have done a rewrite that took this path once the 'original' storyline was over but… This is so much better I'd rather do it now. So forget everything which happened after chapter 14! And most of chapter 14! (Also did some editing of silly grammatical atrocities)

"I don't need to be here for this."

"You don't, but you're tagging along anyways."

"You asked me, and you doing this alone is insanity."

"Hey, give the pup a chance. Everyone else has and we all have our necks."

"I'm sorry I don't run into the forest every other morning for a quick 'running with the wolves'."

Heiress and Brawler walked along one of the main paths to the cliff side. Weiss had been complaining at an interval about the fact she supposedly had to come along with Yang for this. It had been weeks since she had last seen hide/armor or tail of the grimm and everyone else was talking about it. Even Blake who had been the voice of good reason was now being friendly with it! Weiss as the only one left with their head on straight, so she had to watch Yang and make sure nothing happened.

Which was the carefully crafted, shoddily-founded excuse she had made for herself and spoken aloud when the blonde asked if Weiss wanted to watch a sparring match. Between whom? Who else? The meathead and the beowolf. Hardly the most surprising thing to hear, but still concerning.

But she wasn't there to see the grimm, see what everyone seemed to be enamored about. Well, maybe. She just might have a small amount of curiosity to see what everyone else enjoyed but she had been left out of. It was more embarrassing because they didn't actually talk about it that much, it was just a contrast to how the team was always up to date on everything together. She was being left behind a bit and she would not stand for that.

The pair came to a stop in the glade which was the location of Pyrrha's duel with the wolf. Weiss didn't know that, but did see the scraped trees and few gouges in the soil that still remained after a month's worth of wind and some rain. The chips off of the trees were from a sword or bullet, she could see that from the thin marks that edged through the bark of a tree a few feet to her right.

"Now what?" She asked, looking to Yang who just had a grin on her face.

"It's around. It always comes and finds us when we're around here. Anywhere from the edge of the path to the cliff is its roaming grounds." Yang looked left and right through the trees, seeing no motion. It was fairly flat here, and the lack of underbrush meant that someone could see for quite a while through the filter of bark and branch. "Hmm… So it's gotta be…"

Turning she looked to Weiss and her smile twitched. She could see the grimm standing a few paces behind them silently, not even breathing. She didn't want to look at it lest Weiss notice and check herself. Being surprised by the silent beowolf would be funny for Yang but probably continue to fuel the heiress' childish contempt. She knew it wasn't serious, but sometimes the heiress complained even when she wasn't really angry, and that could get tiring.

But… Was it worth it?

"It's behind me right?" Weiss said in a dry tone. Not sarcastic, just patient in a kind of patronizing way. Yang just shrugged and nodded. "You could have said that I'm not that afraid of a-"

She turned and saw that the Grimm was just a little bit closer than she had been expecting. She looked up to its full height and blinked twice before awkwardly waving. To her surprise the grimm waved back, if slowly. She knew that it did that, she had heard as much from Blake, but it was still odd to see in the flesh. Or carapace. Whatever the grimm had.

"Sneaking up on us?" Yang teased as she walked up and poked it in the chest. "You usually stand in front of us, what's with coming on from behind?"

Her tone was dramatic, Weiss noted, more Ruby-ish that normal. The teasing tone was more like she was speaking to a child, the statement more sobering, the question had more of a rising intonation. And she moved her right hand a lot. She wasn't looking for an answer either, because she stepped away once the grimm huffed.

"What was that?" Weiss asked, brow raised.

"Hm? It's how you talk to it when you think it won't understand." Yang explained as she unzipped the pouch she kept on her hip. "It understands emotions well, it is a grimm after all. It knows when you ask a question, it knows when you're joking. Sometimes it makes a noise to say it understands, other times it just stares at you."

"Ah." Made sense. A grimm was able to sense humans by their emotions, but she hadn't known that a beowolf could detect positive emotions as well like… Joviality. "So, like a big dog?"

Yang nodded and pulled out her collapsed duffel bag, the bribe for this. She was pretty sure that the grimm would have been willing to spar for a chance to watch Ember Celica in action, that's how Ruby had managed to befriend it in the first place. This was more of a goodwill thing. The grimm had things to carry and now would have something to carry those things in. It had taken a few days but she had found a similar one at a reasonable price. The grimm could have her old one, it was the more robust of the two anyways.

She untied the straps which kept it collapsed and the high-density foam began to suck air in to give it back its shape. As it returned to a much less wrinkly form she pointed down to the bag. "Duffel Bag." She then pointed to the beowolf. "Yours."

The grimm nodded slightly.

"But." The word was still functionally similar to the wolf as 'wait', 'no', and 'stop'. 'But' had some of the nuance thanks to a lesson from Blake the day before. "We fight first."

"You're still sure about this?" Weiss asked.

"Absolutely."

The beowolf tilted its head slightly before stepping forward and picking up the bag. It placed it over its shoulders again for a secure fit. It shifted the strap a few times before Weiss stepped forward and secured it by tightening some buckles. She had for force herself to do so, but she wasn't going to be obstinate.

Yang was surprised. Suspicious, but surprised.

The beowolf rolled its shoulders before walking over to a tree and scaling it slowly, then very quickly before turning around and hugging it upside-down. Apparently pleased with the result it fell back to the ground and pulled the strap back off and set it aside. The bag had barely shifted on its back, hopefully meaning it would be very quiet when it was scavenging the city for supplies at night.

"So we have a deal?" Yang asked, her gauntlets shifting into combat form, the bracelet expanding to allow the shotgun shells to load. The clicking and sound of shifting metal immediately caught the attention of the wolf, and the beast shifted forward to take a look. Glancing from the weapon to the warrior it grumbled its agreement. "Alright, get ready."

Weiss moved out of the way, standing thirty feet away from Yang while the wolf walked some distance to a clearer area in the glade. Once in a position it liked it turned to face Yang and stood on all fours. It rocked back and forth on its paws so that it was loosened up enough to dodge in any direction swiftly. Yang took note of that before stepping forward into her own boxing posture.

They stared at each other for a moment, Yang's eyes on the grimm's upper body, the Grimm's eyes on Yang's wrists. It was a long time for Weiss, who was a bit nervous.

Eventually Yang dashed forward swiftly crossing the distance. Just to warm up she jabbed at the beowolf's chest. The wolf read the strike and ducked back a bit in order to avoid the strike, though it couldn't out-distance Yang very quickly thanks to her initial speed. She followed up with a low to high strike aimed at the side which was interrupted by a change of angle. Instead of continuing to step ahead of the woman it moved to the left to break some of Yang's velocity.

The woman turned swiftly and was about to continue to press when the grimm dug it's feet and claws into the soil and pushed forward at a much higher velocity. She moved left to dodge as the grimm had but the beast's much larger armspan meant that she had to raise her arms to block against the open-palmed slam had aimed for her chest.

The force pushed her back through the air and made her perform a flip close to the ground in order to reorient herself. Digging a hand into the ground as she crouched she was able to regain her footing, glancing up to see where the beowolf was. It was stalking forward, slowed slightly now, and holding its paws slightly low. On two feet it was slightly off-balance thanks to the length of its upper body but it was standing with a strong stance.

Isn't that Velvet's posture? Yang thought as she stood and hopped from foot to foot to loosen up. _It has been researching the upperclassmen, huh._

She still had the element of surprise. She was small, but she had a significant punch. She just needed to land one and the grimm would be in for some pain.

Unbeknownst to her, the beowolf had seen her punch a car through a series of grimm, and was anything but unaware of the fact that despite the fact she seemed to be the slowest of the bunch she had the most force behind her strikes. That's why it was sure it had a way of making her use her weapon since she was avoiding doing so. A typical show of strength.

Yang dove forward again and avoided taking so long strides in her sprint, now taking shorter ones at the same speed to allow her more control of her motion instead of having to rely on luck in between each footstep. As she approached she took an impressively hard right and left, changing rotational direction mid-motion before the back of her hand soared on a collision course with the grimm's neck. It was a speedy motion, one which surprised the beowolf in how smoothly it had been executed given the necessary finesse.

It made no effort to block.

Yang's wrist stung as physics took place. She winced and kicked off the wolf's chest, making use of the animal's stagger to relocate for another attack. She was second most surprised of the people present when she felt a grip tighten around her shoulder and jar her, holding her in place like a vice. Not enough to injure, just enough to make someone curse under their breath, which she did.

The most surprised of the people present was Weiss. She had watched the opening exchange nervously but after seeing the beast mostly just dodge most the attacks was mollified. It looked like her team's trust in it wasn't misplaced, something which was obvious by the fact it hadn't tried to kick Yang when she was down after the first attack. The brutality that she had just seen, though, was almost impressive. Brutal because it was demoralizing.

She saw the backhand strike and had felt bad for the grimm which was on the receiving end. Her feelings were misplaced though as even though the strike landed square on its neck it looked unfazed. True, the beasts were not well understood so maybe they didn't require air, something which made a throat strike so lethal but… It had stood like a monolith. When the hand impacted its neck it should have by all rights been tossed back but it leaned into the attack at the last moment forcing it to slide backwards as the torn earth absorbed most the shock.

That's the same force that would send a car flying. How heavy is that thing? How could it be that heavy? It crawled around the roof at night so it couldn't weigh more than a truck. It would make too much noise, or even cave a part of the roof in. To be unmoved it would be about the same weight as a Paladin mech, a damn bizarre evolutionary decision.

And it wasn't, the force dispersal and reaction afterwords to grab her wasn't an evolutionary growth, it was a learned reaction. A death stalker was one of the few grimm which had a tendency to attack its own kind, and many hid within the networks of caves which were plentiful outside the kingdom of Vale. The wolf and some of its own kind had wintered in those systems and more than once a deathstalker of incredible age had tried to drive them out. The oldest of all of them the Wolf was tasked with dealing with them. Something which required endurance, defensive traits, and most of all an ability to prevent oneself from being tossed into a chasm by immense force.

The empty air was of course more dangerous than hostile earth for a beowolf.

Holding Yang up with an arm for a moment the grimm huffed.

"Nah, I'm good. Give me a moment." Yang said as the wolf put her down. She took a breath and stretched out her wrist and shoulders. Taking a few seconds to get some deep breaths in she clapped her hands together. "Alright pup, let's see how you deal with fire."

Flicking her wrists her gauntlets came to life, loading up her shotgun shells into their active position. She raised her hands into position again, the grimm raised its hands in a catching position again. Yang smiled as a spark lit in her eyes before flame rocketed along her arms, lighting up her hair in a yellow and orange dance. Her smile turned into a smirk as she lowered her hands down slightly towards the beowolf… Slowly… Slowly…

Kt-chick

That sound was the only warning before two shells were spat out of her gauntlet and collided with the beast's shoulders at high speed knocking it back for a moment at the surprise. It hadn't been expecting the explosion, or the heat-

Through the heated haze the flaming outline of Yang was only an afterimage before her fist collided with a defending paw. The force was still startling and the wolf had to change stance in order to prevent itself from falling flat on its back. Another punch followed shortly after that made it growl deeply in annoyance. It ducked low to avoid that one only to get another blast of heat colliding with its face. During that moment of distraction Yang landed on the ground and delivered an uppercut under the curve of the grimm's chest.

This strike definitely had an effect, lifting the grim off the ground and forced it a fair distance into the air. It recovered again, shaken but unharmed as more shots split the smoke which had formed. It saw them this time and blocked them both with an armored forearm which stung but was less distracting. Through the smoke a white outline of the woman's hair was visible, the shadow where the head would be pointing towards the grimm's location in the air. It almost had a cocky tilt to it, and when the beast landed its growl was easily audible through the trees.

Yang stepped through the smoke with a cocky smirk on her lips. "What?" She drawled, placing her hands on her hips while her hair burned white. "Gonna drop out so soon?"

The beast made a sound like a scoff before rolling its paws. The arrogance of the human was astounding. Pride welled up in the beast as it dropped on all fours again and growled a taunt, which only made Yang grin wider.

"Ready pup?" She asked, teasing. "Here… I…" She aimed her gauntlets slightly behind her. The dual firing of them drowned out the rest of her words as she sped towards the wolf at a higher speed than she normally sprinted at. The grimm ignored that, preferring to focus on what the woman was going to do. The same mistake she was going to make.

Four shots as opposed to the now-usual two rocketed ahead of her which the grimm ignored, allowing them to collide with its front without defense. They hurt, but more importantly created a fog of smoke right in front of it. It watched for the sight of her hair through the smog intently knowing that there would only be a short period of time to make a counter-play. Two more shots pierced the fog ahead of her and then…

A head of hair…

Yang felt like most of her organs had kept on going when she suddenly found herself stopped and choking on her own smoke. She was sore all over her chest and down into her legs with something gripping her around the chest. _Did I just black out?_

No, she hadn't, but she was disoriented. She looked up to see the grimm holding her up from the embers on the ground that her shots had made from their impacts. They were blackish scars, dirty things, but she barely remembered making them with how dizzy she was.

The grimm had managed to stop her charge but Yang obviously hadn't been expecting it. As she had been traveling through the smoke it had jabbed her in the chest, hard. Relatively speaking it was the same as the force she had been using but the difference between expecting an attack and not expecting it was great. She was quite stunned, honestly.

The beast set her down and she waved off any concerns while taking deep breaths. She was going over what had just happened in her head and why her chest hurt then realized what had happened.

"Sneaky." She croaked airily as she took shallow breaths. She was sure she hadn't broken anything but it felt like her diaphragm was just a little bit upset with her. "Next time we do this remind me to remind myself that you're smarter than you look."

_Click, Click, Click._

Between a couple clicks of a heel and the slapping of a riding crop against a palm it was easy to tell who had arrived. Weiss hadn't noticed because she was dashing over to the laid-flat Yang who looked like a hot mess with mud staining her outfit and a nasty bruise darkening her breast just below her collarbone. The injured woman did notice and tried to speak up but her voice failed.

Weiss saw the panicked expression and her head whipped around to see what was so shocking. At that point she was too late to shout something as the grimm was being tossed in a shallow arc down the clearing before sliding a few feet to regain footing. It growled at the unexpected intrusion and Weiss could see red eyes narrowing at the huntress.

"Miss Goodwitch!" She shouted to the professor, but she got no response from the determined strides. She called again but the teacher seemed unaffected, which was explained by an Atlesian combat medic setting down a medic kit down beside the heiress without her noticing his approach. Glynda wasn't worried about Yang's health when faced with a grimm like the Wolf and thought Weiss had nothing to say. _But! Dammit!_

It was easy to see that the Grimm was readying itself for a fight. It was digging its rear claws into the ground as it stared down the barrels of Atlesian Knights and foot soldiers. Twelve of them in total and a huntress was a do or die situation.

_Run! _Yang screamed in her mind since her throat wasn't cooperating. She was being dragged away with Weiss, the latter pushing against the soldier's arms but finding it difficult to stay with Yang and evade the grip at the same time. Glancing to the injured woman, who gave a nod, Weiss broke away a moment to sprint to the front of the guards. She could already feel the tight grip on her arms and she made a snap decision.

Explaining the situation to Glynda would take time she didn't have since the soldiers were making it clear from their vice grips they weren't going to let her stick around.

"Wolf!" She shouted across to the grimm. "RUN!"

The beast's eyes moved to the heiress for a moment, unsure, but was forced to comply anyways when the first volley of concentrated fire slammed into its joints and the plate across the top of its head. Raising an arm to block some of the shots it grumbled as a completely different heat from before started to singe its carapace. It had known flame for a long time, it was common in human weapons and had since developed a fair resistance. Whatever was striking it now, however was a completely different thing.

Another strike similar to the one which had struck it away from Yang collided with it like a charging death seeker. Flying backwards much more quickly this time it managed to catch a foot and roll back onto its feet. Without noticing the woman had approached and blasted it back further. In the corners of its eyes it could see that more soldiers had arrived and were attempting to surround it.

Backing up a bit as the second set of bullets struck it decided to take White's advice and turned, sprinting away. It burst past the closing end of the pincer and started to make a beeline for the Cliffside. It dashed through the woods as stray rounds filled the air over its head. Keeping an eye to the sky it caught sight of an airship starting to float up overhead. Something similar to a curse escaped its lips and it made a hard left to head back towards the city through the woods. It was less than ideal but it wasn't nearly as bad as throwing itself into the line of sight of the machine. It still remembered the sight of the gunships tearing Nevermores from the sky with the guns mounted to their undersides. The beowolf was a robust beast, but it was supposed to survive encounters with small groups of humans. Death machines that hung in the air like black suns were somewhat outside of that particular range.

It managed to break through the woods to the edge closest to the city but there was still a rather impressive distance between the forest's end and the cliff itself. There was a half-kilometer mad dash to make… But it could see more ships approaching farther off. It had lost one ship, but could it lose four as well as all the soldiers? Probably not, the forest was large but it wasn't thick, and if they had many people…

No, the city was the best chance. Humans didn't attack humans so hiding in the city, or at least dashing through it, seemed the best idea. It could try and make its way out to the wall and leap over, humans wouldn't expect that. It would take some climbing though.

The thought forced it pause. Red, White, Black, Yellow. Leaving was complicated by the four. But there was no choice as far as it could see. This was a matter of life and death, and time to wait outside the walls was no object. It could wait a year or so if need be.

Steeling its resolve it crouched onto all fours and took a deep breath, muzzle pointing towards the edge of the cliff. It could see that there were humans starting to arrive by wheeled vehicles. It would need to break through, probably knock a few aside. So be it.

**/**

Arguing with faceless soldiers was now fairly high up the list of Weiss' least liked things, somewhere between Blake's unwillingness to talk about her problems and Port's lessons. It was not a nice place to be, and she was using the full force of a heated glare to try and pierce the thought through the man's helmet.

He ignored her as he stood guard outside the entrance to the school's infirmary. She had been told that Glynda would arrive soon and that she should wait with her friend. Weiss wasn't really against that, it was the fact that the soldier _scoffed_ at her when she tried to explain the situation. Scoffed! The nerve! She couldn't blame him, he was a man trained to kill grimm and had probably been doing it for longer than her entire team combined. She probably sounded a bit crazy…

_Which is going to make explaining this to Goodwitch a bit tricky…_ She thought to herself, pursing her lips. At least Yang was able to sleep now. The jostling from the journey had irritated her ribs and had made it hard for the beleaguered woman to get her rest from her fight. She hadn't really exhausted herself from what the white haired girl could tell, but she probably was in quite a bit of pain. _Which is also going to make this hard to explain away._

If only Glynda had waited! Not that Weiss could really _blame_ the huntress for how things went. It _looked_ bad, but it wasn't. Made her wish that they had brought things to Ozpin's attention and taken the flak for it. It might have changed things. Maybe. _Or would it have just happened sooner?_ Would the Wolf had been forced to run when it was exposed? Impossible to tell now of course, but it set Weiss' jaw all the same.

She opened up her scroll to message the rest of the team but before the display even lit up Ruby and Blake were past the guard and in the room wearing the same worried expression. Blake was the first to speak as Ruby flashed over to Yang's bedside.

"What happened?"

"Lots." Was the short answer Weiss gave, sparing a glance to the unconscious brawler. "She decided to try and wager her duffel bag on out-bludgeoning the Wolf. As you can tell, she lost. Just then Goodwitch showed up with a battalion of soldiers."

Trusting in the wolf enough that Yang wouldn't be hurt too badly Ruby looked up from her sleeping sister and spoke in a surprisingly serious tone. "They're going to kill it if we don't do anything."

"I told it to escape into the woods but… They had an airship." Weiss shook her head.

"The city then." Blake crossed her arms and tapped the toe of her foot against the floor, her restlessness showing through her grimace. "If it's smart it knows the military can't just fly gunships into the city during the time the city is full of people. The breach gave them no choice, but now they have to try and find it on foot."

'Find it' was the euphemism for 'kill it', and the three knew it.

"I'll go." Ruby said, volunteering before anyone even asked it of her. "I'm fastest."

"Go where, Miss Rose?" Glynda said as she walked into the room, brows furrowed and severe gaze landing on Ruby.

"Out." Was all she said, zipping past Glynda before the latter had a chance to stop her. She could hear the woman's stern voice calling down the hall for her to halt but she ignored it. The wolf was in danger and she felt responsible. She might not have been the person to cause the problem but… She found the beowolf, or at least it found her first. She might not have been around it as much recently thanks to other things taking up her time but it was still her responsibility. And right then it was fighting for its life, if it wasn't already dead.

Back in the infirmary the two lucid team members were struggling to summarize the past month and a bit to the headmistress. After speaking to each other and quibbling over a few points Yang rolled over at Glynda's silencing them. Things had been noisy for so long the silence was off-putting, so she woke and decided for the sake of things calming for a moment to explain things quickly.

"Shut up." She groaned, pulling herself upright to the complaint of her muscles. Her half-hearted reprimand sounded weak enough to force her team members to quiet. Focusing on Goodwitch she explained as succinctly as she could. "During the breach Ruby found a really old grimm. It ran away then followed us here. We four have been hanging around with it for the past month-ish. It's not dangerous, I'd let the thing sleep at the foot of my bed if it would fit. Ruby loves the thing like a younger brother even if she doesn't say it. Don't hurt it. Please."

Surprised by the sincerity in the voice of someone she was certain had just been attacked, Glynda pursed her lips before letting out a long sigh. "That is out of my hands now. I'll contact Ozpin and see what he can do."

The huntress had many questions and was quite skeptical, but she was still a teacher. She knew when her students were being honest and when they were hiding something. In that moment, Yang Xiaolong was as honest as she had ever sounded, and that demanded a certain amount of seriousness in response. But now the request had to go through to Ozpin and then to Ironwood. That would complicate things immensely, along with the fact Miss Rose was now out to find the beowolf ahead of his army.

**/**

Ruby had cleared the campus and was looking at the aftermath of the grimm escaping from the plateau. An airship floated a ways above the wreckage of a few flipped armored vehicles and a couple of injured soldiers. They were being loaded onto an ambulance, but as she slowed to see what was wrong they looked only superficially wounded. _Good boy._

She had been sitting in on the beowolf's lessons every once in a while and had started using dog-related terms of endearment when the grimm got things right. It seemed to get the idea, even if it didn't really have a tail to wag or really showed any emotion at all. It still was nice to be positive around the beowolf. It had been such an odd point of contention for the whole team for a long time. Nobody wanted to _say_ they wanted the beowolf around because they _couldn't_. It was just a weird and wrong thing to verbalize. They had just started having real fun with it, even if the wolf wasn't really a 'fun' guy/gal/it, and that made all of them like it more, really. Well maybe not Weiss, but they were going to get there with her.

And as much as they hated to admit it, the Wolf was the first bit of light to hit them since the stuff with Torchwick had started. There were moments of relief, but they didn't make things feel 'better'. They made things 'alright'. They were different feelings and-

"I need to keep moving." Ruby scolded herself, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand. She passed by the soldiers without saying a word and approached the edge of the cliff to look out over the city. She could hear distant gunshots below in the general direction of the merchant's district. She'd start her search there since she thought it was fairly unlikely that the army was firing at a completely different grimm who could push through a military blockade.

Not wasting time on the lift down the cliff she took a few steps back before using a semblance-powered leap to thrust herself into the air at startling speed towards the city and the ground. She drew her scythe from her back and angled herself as she fell so that she was drawing near a light post. Whipping out the scythe in an arc she caught the post in the crook of the blade and took a swift 360 to speed herself up further.

Pulling the blade away she hit the ground running and sprinted down the street. The blowing sudden gale sang with the vibrations of the glass in the windows of the buildings along the road. She eventually slowed down a bit as she had to turn a corner, the sound of gunshot and creaking steel audible from quite a few blocks away. She hadn't decided on what to do once she arrived, probably contest the soldiers by putting herself between the grimm and them. It wasn't a _great_ idea, but it was something.

She found the wreckage of a bullhead smack dab in the middle of some stalls with a wing torn in the middle. It looked like Coco's gatling gun had taken offense to the airship from what the tear looked like, as if some giant claw had messily bisected it with an errant scratch. She passed it by since there was no evidence of the wolf, instead focusing on where the sudden influx of people had come from.

Seemingly out of nowhere people shouting started to rush from a mall not far from the market. They were pouring from the entrances, some of them dashing towards the market to get as far away as they could as quickly as they could. They were shouting, but there was no screaming… So was the grimm not there? People were calling out the names of loved ones but didn't seem to be panicking, just frightened. She saw why when a Paladin mech pulled over a rise in the slope of the building before leaping off to ground level, then speeding off to the side with purpose. The people were afraid of the military action then.

Things had quieted down again and the commotion near her made it impossible for Ruby to figure out exactly where to go next to cut off the mech if it _was_ heading after the Wolf. So she'd have to tag along.

Grumbling unhappily but without alternative she made chase.

**/**

Ironwood was living up to his namesake.

He stood in the citadel which was the Atlesian flagship, staring through a holodeck at the last three letters of team RWBY. All of them had requested, demanded, and begged at differing intervals for him to call off his soldiers. He didn't really understand why, they were talking over each other and it wasn't helping their case. The jumble of words eventually lead to him raising a hand and addressing Ozpin, who was just off-screen.

"Can you explain to me what your students want?" He asked, brows knitting together. "They seem to be demanding a withdrawal of my soldiers but that can't possibly be correct."

He saw the three huntresses-to-be rankle but they stepped out of the way with some quiet words from their headmaster. They still looked annoyed, but didn't seem ready to start shouting an obscenity or two. Whatever was going on had them obviously beside themselves, but with _what_ wasn't exactly clear.

"I apologize, they're trying to explain something rather complex and fear there is little time." Ozpin said as he walked into view and rested two of his hands atop the hilt of his cane. "In short, your soldiers need to stand down."

Ironwood rubbed his temple with the tips of gloved fingers before responding. "And why is this?"

"Because they claim it is peaceful, and if it is we need to be careful not to harm it." Oz said. He wasn't as sure as Glynda was about the honesty of the group since he hadn't seen Yang's plea, but he could see in their minds the image of a peaceful beowolf. Or at least an inquisitive one. "That aside your soldiers would be putting themselves in undue risk."

Ironwood was about to speak when a pager at his waist beeped, letting him know there was an urgent message for him. He lifted a finger to ask for a moment of privacy before muting the microphone. Opening a scroll and looking through the field report he was being sent he set his jaw. One image showed the blurred form of a white beowolf. An old grimm. Nearby was a soldier was a readout which showed that the monitored vitals had dropped to the point of no return.

_Ideals._ He shook his head before accepting the report and pocketing his scroll again. He turned back the image of Ozpin and shook his head, unmuting the device.

"One of our men is dead because of the beast. Whatever 'peaceful' intentions it had, it is a threat to human lives." He crossed his arms. "A dachshund which annoys sheep can be given a chance, a dragon which kills the flock cannot."

**/**

Of course it wouldn't be _easy_ to escape the city, but the grimm hadn't thought that it would be prevented from doing so. True, the humans probably thought it would go into hiding until they thought it was gone, and yes, that was a correct assumption. It wouldn't use that time to attack them though, not that man knew that.

It was currently in a fight between two large mechanical men and a human using rope. It had dashed this way since it seemed less fortified but that turned out to actually be a trap. The woman using the rope could direct it like it was an extension of her hand. It was heavy like lead and was surprisingly strong despite being thin. She used it to restrain the Wolf's movement, forcing it to brawl it out with the two Paladin mechs. Without warning she would tighten the lead and it would drag the beowolf by the chest towards the center of the ever-tightening circle.

It had been avoiding the fact it needed to attack the human for a couple minutes when it finally decided something needed to happen.

The machines were huge, and the grimm had thought they would be slow due to their size. That was a reasonable assumption that had been proven wrong quite swiftly.

It was avoiding strikes from one mech by weaving backwards, the large metal limbs moving swiftly to try and break the wolf's arms and legs. While it was ducking low the other would attack from the side, forcing it to contort, knocking it off balance and pulling it closer and closer to the woman. It hadn't sustained any real damage, just a few glancing blows but it didn't want to see if it could handle five more of the paladins solo.

As it felt the tug on its chest it threw itself backwards towards the huntress, sliding along on its back before turning and righting itself. The lack of spines on its back made such a technique more useful than it normally was for wolves, but despite the uncommon action the huntress was unfazed, instead leaping towards the beast and dodging sideways to avoid the grapple. She tried to use the movement to tangle the beast's feet up but had misjudged the animal's momentum. She caught her foot on the ground and used a dagger to grab the ground, parallel to her body in case it needed to slide a bit to slow the animal down. She had been expecting the beowolf that was only mid sized to have the same weight as a 12 foot tall Ursa Major.

With a short gasp of surprise she was torn from the ground and into the air. Her ropes coiled around the beast and through her aura she tried to soften her fall. The grimm had different ideas, and shocking everyone observing with its intelligence it untangled itself from the binds and hauled the woman from the air with her own chain.

Falling uncontrollably the paladins moved to intercept the huntress. Before she could impact the ground she was tugged off-target, and holding on for dear life she found herself painfully, roughly, but un-injuredly in the paw of the beowolf. It had its thumb and pinky gripping her under the breast while the index and ring fingers held her over her shoulders. Her head was pulled back by the middle finger, forcing her to look straight at a Paladin which was grinding to a halt.

Like a possum she went limp, fearing for her life. The beowolf used the moment of hesitation on the Paladin's part to back up using an arm and two legs. It was awkward to keep the woman in between it and the mechs but that seemed to be its way of getting out of the city… For now.

It could see that while it had been distracted the airships had decided to approach. They were now circling overhead like vultures while it slowly but surely made its way towards the ocean. It couldn't swim, but from the ocean there was the option of going north or south to escape the city. So long as they didn't try and attack it had a plan to leave the woman near one of the walls, maybe just outside the city. Nothing too far off that they would wind up missing her and continue searching into the hills. The Wolf had no intention of turning tail and leaving permanently, there were things it could do here that it wanted to do.

The plan was not without its faults. If a human approached from the side they might take a shot or two when the woman wasn't in their line of sight to see if the umpteenth-hundredth bullet would pierce where others had failed. It was a practice which was gnawing at the Grimm's patience but it held its temper. It was careful not to jostle the human too much or harm her, instead keeping a solid grip like a roller coaster might have. Uncomfortable, unpleasant, but not altogether painful.

Approaching the dock area the decision between North and South had to be made. The army was starting to circle around the beast and while they had been staying back for a while they were starting to creep closer and closer. Soon it wouldn't have anywhere to go without threatening the woman with blood-letting. It had no qualms with that, but it assumed (correctly) that injury to the woman would only escalate things. It didn't know if her being untouched made things better, but her being injured definitely made things worse.

When airships approached from behind the grimm grumbled and ran on three limbs north. It wasn't that fast and the ambling motion was awkward, but it worked for now and the beast wanted to get as far as it could without having to drop the woman. She was no longer feigning death, now risking looking side to side when she had the chance since she was pressed to its chest when it had to move. She was in for a surprise when the grimm leapt from street level to the top of one building to another in order to escape the sight of the flying machines.

It made it a fair distance with nobody chasing, much to its suspicion. It passed between a few buildings before it came to an atrium in the middle of an office complex. It pulled itself under the eaves of the courtyard and peered out from underneath to see a few airships pass by, one with 'SWAT' written on it, a word it didn't know.

Letting go of the woman for a moment since the exit from the courtyard was all the way across the clearing. Grumbling to itself it kept one eye on the soldier who stood in place for a moment before hazarding a glance to the grimm. The beast looked right back at her but did nothing, letting her roll her shoulders before the beast walked forward and grabbed her again, this time heaving her over its shoulder so it had use of both arms. It sensed no malicious emotions emanating from the woman so it decided this was safe enough, and if she escaped it only had another few kilometers to go before it was clear of the city and, hopefully, the military.

It didn't get long to wonder as a clicking noise was all the warning it got before a blast of noise tore through its ears and a blinding light pierced its eyes. For a few seconds it was unable to see or hear aside from an intense ringing which was like nails driven between the eyes. It was unable to do anything when it was tossed from the wall to the ground suddenly while ropes secured over its body, pinning it to the ground.

Murderous intent was thick in the air as It felt the air leave its lungs and weight settle across its joints and back. Unable to move it struggled blind and deaf but with an acute knowledge that it was in a life-or-death situation without being able to move.

As its eyes finally adapted it tilted its head to see a black haired man with a scythe at his side standing on his shoulders, eyes distant and brows knit. His scythe was similar to Red's but much thinner, making it seem even more ominous. It felt sharp in the air even without it even touching the beast's body, armored or not. Struggling against its bonds it flared its nostrils and struggled to find purchase against the ground when it couldn't even plant its feet or hands.

"End of the line." The scythe-wielding man said, lowering the blade so it hooked under the beowolf's neck.

"Sir, if I may." The woman said, standing and rubbing her ears. "The beowolf-"

"We already know." The man said, leaving the blade in place but not threatening decapitation. "Ozpin sent us since Ironwood was being headstrong as usual." He looked from the grimm to the black-haired woman. "Raven."

The woman paused before crossing her arms and staring back at her brother. Even with the soldier's equipment on she couldn't so easily distort the truth for family... She couldn't say she was surprised. He'd have questions for her, but they'd need to wait. She wasn't particularly interested in staying around to answer the questions Qrow would have for her.

The grimm didn't know what was going on but was quite aware of the thin edge which was eating its way slowly but surely through the thick armor under its throat. It had encountered sharp blades and incredible force but the scythe was so thin that it parted the beowolf's armor like it was nothing. It was struggling against its binds, pulling its head backwards so that it could avoid as much of the blade as possible… But it wasn't going to be enough if he didn't-

The man stopped talking with the woman and leaned down to the Grimm's ear, speaking with a quiet but serious tone. "Ozpin tells me you know Ruby and Yang?" The rhetorical question was tensely answered by the slight nod the grimm gave against the pressure of the blade. "Good, you're smart. They're going to get into massive trouble with the council thanks to you and you might get executed anyways. You're lucky their dad isn't here, he'd personally roast you for the trouble."

Stepping off of the beast he knelt down to look into its eyes. The same undefined red eyes of all grim looked back at him, but there was some type of expression being impressed upon him which he couldn't really place. The beast was smart enough to take a hostage, escape instead of fight, understand some of what he said. For once he felt more on James' side than Ozpin's but he had trust in his nieces. If there was something good here they might be right. _Might._

Flipping his scythe between two fingers it collapsed down into what looked like a bulky fan and holstering it. Drawing his scroll he raised it to take a picture of the prone beowolf to send to Ruby since she was the one out and searching for it. Right as he clicked to take the photo he heard the telltale shriek of a particular someone as they fell from the roof of the building down to ground level. He was so surprised he nearly drew his scythe, only to turn and see Ruby landing on the ground a couple feet away from the beowolf. She paid no attention to her uncle, her eyes instead locked onto the wolf.

"Ruby? Why are you-?"

The brunette ignored the question and instead knelt down and hugged the beowolf's head tightly. Her shoulders shook slightly, forcing Qrow to bite his tongue. He remained silent as Ruby quietly chastised the beowolf, petting its armor like it were a large puppy. _Just what is going on?_ He wondered, stepping away to leave the two some privacy and motioning for the officers to unbind the beast.

_Tai is going to have kittens…_ He thought as he sent a message to Ozpin to let the headmaster know that they had the grimm in hand and would be returning to Beacon shortly. Ironwood's forces would need to be dodged since they wouldn't be distracted long, but that wouldn't be too difficult. They wouldn't think to search one of the kingdom's SWAT bullheads. The favors that he needed to pull, however…

Looking back to Ruby embracing the beowolf he sighed. _Alright, it's worth it._

**AN:** Told you it would be long. So yeah, everything is different! Probably for the better. Yeah, there were some fights which aren't here anymore but they were ultimately unnecessary. This actually gets more done paradoxically. This big update should carry you all through to the rest of the week (I hope) since I'll only be getting back to regular postings after my exams are over. If you have any questions ask them, if not, you certainly are adapting to this better than I am!

And why Ruby is shaken will be covered next chapter.


	15. Decisions, Decisions

**AN:** Please excuse some awkwardness in this chapter. I need to get through this one before things get a bit smoother. I'll probably wind up cutting some of this stuff out and changing the wording but rest assured that what follows won't need to change. Don't worry about checking back on this chapter. Also some of you might not be able to post a review since this chapter technically already exists and you can't review multiple times. If you want you can either drop the review on an earlier chapter you _haven't_ reviewed _or_ PM me the review. That said, enjoy!

_When was the last time we were all seated like this?_ Qrow thought to himself as he looked around the room. He, along with Ozpin, Glynda, Ironwood and Taiyang were inside the Beacon Academy staff lounge. There were some notable exceptions, Summer and _her_ respectively, but this was still the closest the eight of them had come to being in the same room in nearly a decade.

He wished it was under better circumstances. Seated backwards on a simple chair he looked to each of those present and saw emotions ranging from thoughtfulness to betrayal. A far cry from their school years but that was what time had done to them. It drew even the closest-knit of friends apart in the end. Not that they had made any attempt to remain in contact after they had split up. Eight became four, four became two. Now only five of them were left to argue over the fate of four silly, _silly_, kids.

"So what now?" He asked, running a hand along his head to slick his hair back. The awful question, because it had no answer.

**/**

In an empty gymnasium a similarly uncertain reunion was occurring.

Port, Oobleck and a few more teachers were standing guard inside the building while Ruby and the Wolf reunited with the rest of the team. They had been posted as a cautionary force in case the wolf tried something and were most certainly unhappy with it overall. Oobleck, however, was incredibly interested, shifting his glasses every few seconds to inspect each minute detail of the exchange. It was well lit in the room so they all had a clear view of the beast as it sat on its haunches.

_Amazing. Body strongly resembles a beowolf in proportions but lacks extraneous back protrusions of the elder members of species. White armor is smooth, not angular, does not catch light despite being white. Thin, so it seems, pliant. A beast with considerable speed and defensive capabilities. No protruding claws, humanoid hands, shoulders seem human. Remarkable, it evolved past the mobility restrictions of the race. A veritable scout, but as strong as a Paladin. An apex of the race no doubt!_

The man was excited to say the least. He was a man of history, it was in all respects his forté even as a huntsman, but he was still a man with a thirst for all knowledge. In front of him, within a dozen paces, was an example of a species which had for centuries beat their way through the strongest fortifications of man. A single human could lay dozens down with the proper training but the tenacity of a beowolf pack meant danger and death regardless. But here… One of those same beowolves was standing stock still like a statue without so much as a glare. It could harm so much but it _wasn't_. It _wasn't_ out there killing people. What made it different? Age?

"Can you believe this?" Port huffed, shuffling a bit sideways to be closer to his coworker. His narrowed eyes were more focused on Ruby who was prodding at the Grimm's armor. "They treat it like an oversized pup!"

"They do." Oobleck agreed absentmindedly, not realizing that Port was being critical. "A remarkable feat to be sure. None of the species has been held in any form of restraint such as this without violent outburst. No record of a human interaction with the species aside from violence since the dawn of time. A truly magnificent event is in front of us. Monumental. Curious."

"There is only one thing 'monumental' about this occasion." Port grumbled as he crossed his arms over his chest, nose scrunching up and moustache flapping. "The fact that we are _guarding_ it as opposed to killing it and mounting it on a wall as trophy. Every Huntsman this side of the great wall is shamed by the fact we let a _murderer _sit idly while good men lay rotting."

Pulled out of his near-theological analysis Oobleck frowned and glanced to Port. "You believe this to be meaningless?"

"Pointless." The rotund man corrected. "Shameful."

Taking a long drink from his flask Oobleck made a 'hmph' noise. "We'll see. I don't disagree that there is a particular weight for letting it be free, if it comes to be free, but if it saves eight lives does it make up for the loss of three?" Taking another long drink he pushed back the grim emotions pulling at the back of his mind. "We give children their best chance before pushing them into the life of a Huntsman. If this saves team RWBY from fate then three soldiers died for first real chance humanity has had in recent memory."

**/**

"Sit still…" Ruby asked the beowolf quietly as she pulled another bullet out of the beast's arm. It had been shot an innumerable amount of times and had been scratching ineffectively at the rounds still lodged in its armor. The armor wasn't hard enough to force the bullets to get deflected when they struck at an angle, just get stuck. Uncomfortable with the extraction process it silently grumbled as it was prodded but accepted the assistance. Mostly the problem was being surrounded by huntsmen.

There were quite a few things wrong with the situation from its perspective. First, it was surrounded by murderous intent. Seven huntsmen were guarding windows and doorways and six of those were varyingly distrustful and angry, hateful in some cases. The beast was hardly offended, it was more concerned that the humans might attempt something when it was outnumbered and unable to move. The fact that these seven were probably the shepherds of the children at the school meant that they were an even greater threat. How much of a threat it didn't know, but enough that it was on edge. It was pleased that Red was doing what she was because that gave it some sort of buffer.

A bullet from the bullhead it had downed did make it growl audibly when the huntress-in-training pulled it from the outside of its elbow. It glared at her and she just shrugged sheepishly, to which it only huffed.

Black, who had been talking quietly with White and Yellow said something directed to the Grimm and it glanced over. She was holding up the malformed shape of metal that had been lodged in its shoulder.

"Bullet." She said. The tone was nothing special to the normal ear but it could tell this was a word the faunus wanted it to learn. After it nodded she drew out her weapon and left the blade in its sheath. It watched curiously as she pressed down on something and a clicking noise could be heard before a compartment in the hilt popped out. Extracting it she fiddled with the end before holding up a small metal thing which was roughly cylindrical. "Bullet."

It nodded and she tossed it under hand to the beast. Looking at it the wolf lifted the spent round before a weight on its arm forced it to transfer both the spent and untouched bullets to its right hand. Without looking it knew Red wanted to continue with her operation and let her do so. Of the four she was the one who 'stuck' more often and had learned that prodding and poking was the punishment for not allowing it.

**/**

"Should we feel guilty?" Yang asked as she watched her sister and partner awkwardly try and make the Wolf feel comfortable in present company. She was pretty sure that she would feel uncomfortable in a room filled with Grimm, and by the beowolf's posture it looked just as displeased. She knew that she hadn't meant to cause the events of the day but when it came down to it, she was the one who wanted to fistfight a beowolf. _What was I thinking?_ Her eyes were downward as her fists clenched, jaw set.

Weiss, who was the closest and the one to whom the question was really directed breathed deeply in through her nose. She thought for a moment before letting it go through her mouth. "_You_ decided that the best course of action on a Thursday evening was to pack up a bag and try and bribe a wild animal to fight you. Without considering the fact that it could misunderstand and attack you, or me, or _anyone_ for that matter, you threw the gauntlet. You got your ass _kicked_ and made enough noise that Glynda found us. So yeah, this is on you."

A flare of anger in Yang's chest was quickly doused by the weight of shame.

"_But_." The heiress continued. "I should have done more to stop you." She laced her fingers together and distractedly picked at the underside of her nails to remove invisible grit. "_I_ got carried away. I, admittedly, wanted to see what the rest of my team was so interested in and that blinded me to the possible… problems." She pulled her hands apart and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not your partner, but I'm your teammate, and I should have had thought things through more clearly. So I'm guilty too, and I'm sorry."

The two stood in silence for a moment, both feeling responsibility press on their chest.

"Sorry." Yang mumbled.

"Yeah." Weiss whispered.

The brawler watched Blake and Ruby speak quietly to the grimm for a little while before noticing the irregular ridges that rounds had made in the beast's chest and other arm. The damage was obvious, even from her oblique angle. Walking forwards she took to the beast's other arm and started to pry the bullets from the carapace. She did so carefully, using only the tips of her fingers and trying to keep from applying pressure to the top of the metal. It wasn't that difficult, like pulling burrs from Zwei when he ran into thistles during the fall. The grimm looked down at her for a moment before looking back to Blake and dropping its arm lower down.

Silently happy that the Wolf wasn't pushing her away she pulled out a round and found that it had pierced all the way through. When she removed it the red on the end of the round immediately burned off and flecked into the air. Looking at the wound itself the angry red which was inside all grimm was glowing bright. It was a fairly ominous color, _But at least it isn't bleeding_, she thought to herself. She continued and pretended to ignore the slowly growing pile of lead at her feet. Every once in a while when she removed a piece of metal the beast would tense, grumble or silently shake, then relax again. After a minute Weiss approached and started on the beast's side. Moments later Blake started pulling them from the chest of the grimm.

There were four of them, but it was still a sizeable task. By the time the arms, chest and lower back were done their fingers were stiff and Blake's nails were leaking blood at the edges. They took a small break and Ruby played some music from her scroll in order to fill the quiet. It had been a long time but they still hadn't been summoned by the headmaster, a slightly unnerving fact. They could hear the soft snoring of one or two teachers who had fallen asleep themselves. While Blake looked out the windows to the stars she saw a flash of orange hair. Well, _thought_ she did, she was tired so it might have been nothing.

_Nope, that's definitely…_ Walking towards one of the windows she saw the peering eyes of team JNPR in the corner of one of the panes. Nora, Jaune, Ren and Pyrrha were all looking through into the dark of the room. Ren caught sight of her and had an expression which could only be described as a combination of apologetic and uncomfortable. He wasn't saying anything but Jaune and Nora were obviously babbling amongst themselves none-to-quietly. _Well at least they're as bad as we are at being sneaky._

Moments later and Pyrrha noticed, who prodded those below her. Suddenly three sheepish looks and the grin of Nora were falling out of view as Blake could only imagine was Nora slipping and taking the rest with her. There was a quiet thud and she saw Oobleck step outside.

A minute later and team JNPR was standing with team RWBY and facing the Beowolf. Jaune was in front, flanked by Pyrrha who looked ready to toss the team leader behind her in case the Wolf did anything suspicious. Jaune for his part didn't seem adverse to such a plan as he was smiling like he was looking a monster in the eye. Which he was. Nora was excited to the surprise of no one.

"So you don't know what Ozpin wants?" Pyrrha asked, her arms crossed.

"Or what Ironwood wants." Yang sighed. "Uncle Qrow called us together and told us to wait. He said something about convincing 'the General' so that has to be him."

"Do they know that we knew as well?" Nora asked, more inquisitively than anything. "Because if they do they are _sooo_ going to lock us in here with you and if they do we won't be able to go to class not that _I_ pay attention and then we'll get behind and that's why I got us-"

_If they didn't, they do now._ All present thought as the Warhammer-wielding woman continued to babble on.

"And what is it _doing_?"

That caught Ruby's attention and she looked back at the beowolf. She didn't know either at first and the beowolf looked surprised. It was on all fours 'standing' when before it had been seated on its haunches. Shaking its head it pulled itself back onto its rear and took a few audible breaths. Ruby's brow creased in worry but though the grimm seemed to notice it didn't provide any explanation, not that it really could.

"It looked a bit… Woozy." Jaune said, making a face. "Which is weird because grimm don't eat anything."

"Aside from people." Pyrrha said a bit too seriously for Ruby's liking, but Yang made a point of rolling her eyes to prevent any petty squabbling from beginning. She placed her hands on her hips and stared with meaning at the gladiator who got the hint and switched subjects. "Fine. As long as we don't get dragged into whatever happens."

**/**

"I categorically refuse." Ironwood said finally, flask creaking under his grip as he glared daggers at Qrow. "I have explained a dozen times by now, there is no element within me that can allow the Grimm to go free. It goes against my basic sense of honor and any reasonable sense I still have that you all seem to be lacking!"

He stood from his seat and looked each of those present in the eyes. "Joan Feele, Corporal, Leon Hathford, Private second class, and Johan Bodendorfer, Private second class. The three are currently en-route to Atlas in draped caskets. You can spew rhetoric about a 'new age' but the only reality in front of _me_ is that there are dead."

Glynda had to restrain the urge to roll her eyes at the hard-headedness but she acknowledged what James was saying. The beowolf had killed in its attempt to escape, and it might do the same when it was cornered elsewhere. Then it might be civilians and not soldiers who fall into the crossfire, and she saw that as worse by a considerable range.

"I think we should take a break." Ozpin said once the silence in the room had become a mote too passionate. The rest got his hint and left, albeit reluctantly, leaving the headmasters in the same room. James had a suspicious look on his face but sat down on the couch again, keeping a careful eye on Ozpin.

For his part the headmaster of Beacon was silent, taking a long drink from his mug before holding the warm cup between his hands.

"If you expect that I can believe your judgement in regards to the wolf then you are mistaken Oz." The general sighed, tired from the night's arguing. "You talk about possibilities like you can see them but everyone else can only see the evidence we're faced with."

"What if you didn't need to trust me? What if you only needed to trust Ruby Rose?" The white-haired man asked as he carefully watched James' reaction over the rim of the cup. Understandably, the general's expression hardened again, but was cut off before he could say a word. "This isn't an attempt to weasel out of the Grimm's eventual death, it's instead a chance for the students."

Already displeased with the offer as it made no sense, but unwilling to argue just yet, he motioned for Ozpin to continue.

"Ruby Rose was willing to search through the entire kingdom to try and find the Beowolf when she feared for its safety. Yang Xiaolong had enough faith in its intelligence that she was willing to wrestle with it in a game. Blake Belladonna has been for the past week or so teaching it human language." Ozpin stated the three points imploringly. "Weiss Schnee, despite being the probable snitch of the group, has remained silent despite her strong opinions."

Setting his glass down Oz continued. "Their skills individually are in no way comparable to a second year but their synergy is quite remarkable. If they're willing to make a sacrifice in time, they may very well be able to keep the Wolf and satisfy your requests. They _trust_ this animal implicitly. I do not know why but I'm willing to have enough faith in my students to let them make such a critical decision on their own. If they are willing, if they _believe,_ even you have to admit that they can use a Grimm's help once they become members of the legions of the damned."

**/**

"You're all present. Good." Glynda said as she and the rest of the deliberators entered the room. At her sides were James and Ozpin, the former's eyes drilling into the Beowolf, the latter with an unreadable expression. Following behind was Qrow, stepping through the doorway and distracted by something behind him. The huntress continued, "We have something to discuss with you all, teams RWBY _and_ JNPR."

"Before that!" Someone shouted as a man with longish yellow hair dashed through the front door and slid between Glynda and Ozpin. His violet eyes connected with Ruby's and Yang's like laser sights and the pair paled noticeably. Ruby barely managed to say "dad" before she and Yang were caught in a maelstrom of pointed questions and exasperation. By the time he was done both of them were looking at the ground and apologizing softly.

The beowolf watched with interest as the human continued his speech. It didn't exactly understand everything that the man was saying, or really much of it at all, but the human was concerned. He was slightly angry but fear was the more prominent odor. In fact as the wolf looked to the arriving humans there was guilt in their air. All of them exuded it but the density varied considerably. The yellow-haired man was weighed by it, as was Qrow, but the largest portion was held by the white haired man and blonde woman that had chased it from the mountain before.

Guilt. Like a human that saw its partner dying a preventable death. The grimm shifted its posture slightly in concern. There was no murderous intent so there was no direct threat but it had been attacked by three humans in the room already. Grumbling softly it took a step towards team RWBY, the closest thing it had to allies since the pack had been killed. It turned out that was the least appropriate action since the man standing near the girls whirled to face it with a sudden spark of an emotion the grimm couldn't place. Dark certainty? It didn't have long to determine it before Yang grabbed the man by his shoulder and said something quickly. The man paused and the emotion faded.

The Wolf refrained from approaching until Ruby motioned for it. Emotions flared slightly again but it didn't fear for its life when it stood in the middle of the two teams. RWBY on the right with Red nearest and team JNPR on the left with Nora being the closest. The people on the left were much more nervous than those on the right, but there was an overwhelming amount of curiosity coming from the orange-haired girl. The grimm could feel her eyes on its head and she seemed content to ignore the humans in front. The beast felt like attempting to get an explanation from the woman but it was improbable that she would understand that the tilted head was a query.

Another mix of emotions was present and its gaze shifted to a man who stood taller than the rest. He wore white and had dark gray hair, thus instantly being dubbed 'Gray' by the creature. What was far more interesting than that was his air. His eyes were trained onto the beowolf like a hunter's sights and though the others showed apprehension this man only had… What? The Grimm was unable to place any emotion coming off of him. There was no loss, no anger, no disgust. It was neutral. Unsettlingly so.

"A decision had to be made about what to do about your Beowolf." Ozpin said, his tiredness showing through his voice. "Ironwood is adamant that it be destroyed since he believes it to be responsible for the deaths of three men and women under his command."

A long pause filled the air with either shock, disgust or despair depending on what the grimm focused on. Whatever was said was definitely not good, and that made it stiffen slightly.

"If you would hold your comments until the end, please." Ozpin implored Weiss who looked like she was about to burst into a rant of some sort. "We couldn't convince him otherwise so we were forced to promise him something which was ultimately the same. The Wolf will become a permanent attaché in team RWBY."

Confusion, surprise, incredulity. The wolf looked to the humans near it and saw the different emotions plainly on their faces. A bit of outrage was in the distance among the shepherds but that was mostly suppressed by the other emotions.

"Y-you mean?" Ruby spluttered a bit as she shook her head as if to clear the conclusion. "It's R-W-W-B-Y?"

The headmaster raised a hand to show he wasn't done yet. The grimm could sense the increasing weight of guilt in the air from the humans in front of it and was confused itself now. The emotions of the humans conflicted with Red, White, Black and Yellow. It didn't seem a good sign at all. Were they hiding something from the others?

"Just what do you mean by that?" Blake asked, taking a step forwards, ignoring Ozpin's request to keep quiet for the time being. "There's no way the other students would accept a beowolf in their midst. It's impossible for the wolf to be part of our team."

"As a first year, no." Qrow said, speaking up. "You would be spending too much time on campus for it to be reasonable. The chance of a civilian from Vale reporting you to local authorities would also be too high. Instead you would be going to be put into second year's new term starting after the festival. It would be dangerous to skip that many months of training but would give you access to the away missions which the second years have. As for the status of the Grimm it would be a companion beast as dogs are for huntsmen."

The blonde woman who had driven the Wolf away took that moment to warn them. "This would be a massive undertaking even with your level of promise. Your lives were already endangered when you joined the academy and pursuing this goal will be far more perilous than any challenge you have faced. Understand that if you wish to save the beast it would come at the expense of endangering your own lives."

"We are still deliberating on who would be mentoring you for the change from one year to another, but the arrangements will need to be done shortly. You have three weeks until you make your decision, I recommend you think long and hard about what you are going to do." Ozpin took a deep breath and looked the Beowolf straight in the eyes. "Your choice may have unforeseeable consequences."

"And… Uh… What about us?" Jaune asked. "Do we have to go into second year as well?"

"That would be your choice." Glynda answered. "If you do then you are putting yourself in the same position as team RWBY and possibly harm yourself in the process. There are multi-team missions, however, and you eight have shown inter-team synergy from the beginning. Regardless of your choice you will be asked to remain silent on the topic of the beowolf."

"I beg you think very carefully about whether or not this beast is worth saving." James said as he slipped his hand into the breast of his coat. Her brow creased slightly and he made a fist under the fabric before pulling it back out, fingers moving as if opening a clasp. It looked like a habitual movement and there was a measure of displeasure in his air. "Ozpin believes that your… _Companion_ has potential. He thinks that even with missing a year of your studies." Bringing his hands behind him he clasped them, his stance becoming more rigid. "I might be a fool for believing him in the face of what the beowolf has done, but you don't need to make the same mistake."

Finally the shell around the man's mind cracked and the Beowolf was not ready. The others had something it would call 'fear'. Not of the Wolf itself, it was of something in the future, and that fear was tinged with strong guilt. This man, this Gray was currently emanating the same guilt but instead of it being of some hazy future it was some sort of present disgust. Words fail to describe the sensation and the Grimm's normally stellar control was tested.

For the first time in a long while the grimm was tempted. It curled its claws into the ground as it tried to ignore the nauseating concoction surrounding it. Suddenly there were currents of anger, hurt, betrayal, and fear in its close proximity, their normally dulled potency now in full effect. It felt like its 'blood' was being pulled through the air and towards the humans and faunus. It was the most curiously antagonizing sensation that it had experienced. It remembered a similar experience from the past but it was hard to remember. Looking up from the ground it caught sight of one of the shepherd's weapons and logic reeled the temptation in. It had experienced the blade of the scythe within recent memory and that was enough to cool irrationality.

The deeper wounds still burned but they cooled slightly as time went on. A minute later and the humans were still speaking, about what it was too distracted to guess. Soon enough they calmed and the burning stopped which pulled a sigh of relief from its mouth. Red looked at it from the side and tugged at its arm in question. Unable to describe the sensation and not wanting to it only huffed.

"What's wrong?" Blake asked Ruby, who shrugged.

"It still isn't feeling well?" She guessed, her words rising in intonation as she again glanced at the Grimm. "The bullets might have done something…"

"It will be moved off of the plateau and into the Forever Falls for the evening around the old ruins as there are no missions set there tomorrow. From there it will be moved deeper into the range where the Crimson Mjoll range begins. There it will be far enough away that it will pose no threat to the students or the kingdom." James explained, the other Huntsmen looking at him as if he was making this up on the spot, which he was. "If you know where that is, you know that it would be impossible for a Grimm to escape observation and sneak back to the academy grounds."

"If you do not, it will be part of your extended geography lessons, which I am sure you would be conscious for, correct?" Glynda asked the eight students plus-one.

It was her attempt at a joke, and they could tell, but the atmosphere was a bit too tense for anyone to chuckle. While the grimm had been suffering silently they had listened to the evidence which pointed to it being responsible for a bullhead crash. It was quite simple really, the operator had been in contact with Control relaying the duel between the Wolf, the Paladins, and the Huntress. Suddenly they lost power to one of their propellers and the vessel went down in a heap a few blocks away.

Ironwood gave the play-by-play with a stony gaze. After telling of the bullhead he continued by telling what his operatives had seen of the Beowolf taking a 'woman' hostage. He didn't tell them who that person was though Qrow was tempted to do so, even if it was only Yang in private.

"Wait, what?" Yang interjected after the general said something suspicious. "You said that the soldiers tried to 'take her back'. Is that why the Wolf has sniper rifle rounds in its back?"

"Only light rounds were used." Qrow said. A few of his SWAT members had been sent as sharpshooters to try and pin the Grimm down. "

Ruby's face twisted in confusion before she picked up one of the pieces of lead up from the ground and held it behind her back. The rest of those present looked at her with confusion and she just smiled awkwardly, waving the interest off.

It was late and the rest of the debrief could wait, so it was only minutes later that the team members were sent off to their dorms under oaths of silence and the Beowolf was directed to a bullhead that would be taking it to the steepest mountain range on the continent.

**/**

_Why?_ Ruby Rose thought as she held up the deformed piece of lead that she had picked up from the floor of the gym. It was barely recognizable as a bullet, but it was definitely a high caliber. She was holding a .50 BMG round, the same used in Crescent Rose. The 'tail' end was bloomed out like a metal flower which would dig into the armor of an armored target. The stress fractures would be shattered by a follow up charge which would detonate the explosive in the tip of the bullet.

It was an anti-vehicle round, the type used to incapacitate Bullheads.

**/**

_Little Red, Little Red,_

_I'll eat you in the night,_

_Consume your flesh n' _

_Burn your bones,_

_And revel in delight._

_Little Red, Little Red,_

_I'll Crush your skull in twain,_

_But 'fore I do that simple task_

_Won't you sew me up again?_


	16. Frayed Threads

**Forever Falls.**

Leaning back against the smooth marble of the pillar the **"wolf"** took deep breaths.

The thing looked out up at the **"stars"** and the **"moon"**. The **"circle"** barely stood out against the **"black" "sky"** thanks to the **"cloud"** cover. It hung over the school from the beast's perspective acting like a distant lighthouse. Over there, there was something. Allies.

"**Ruby."**

"**Weiss."**

"**Blake."**

"**Yang."**

As the beowolf cast its eyes around its muzzle shifted and nostrils flared. Blowing air gently it thought of the words it had learned. It would be a gross overstatement to call the entire process 'thinking' so much as practicing the elements of it. Definitely an alien process, but it was doing quite well despite that.

Some things it needed to do sooner than later defined its vocabulary. It needed to shed part or all of its armor and then recast it. Somewhere in the distant past it has first crafted the plates which spread over its chest and back. It was a particularly uncomfortable experience, like nails growing under the skin and then pushing through all at once. There was no pain… Or was there? Many years had passed since then so the memory may have had a few holes.

Patches had used the few hours since it had arrived at the ruins to grow over the holes made by the bullets. They were sticking, but were made of completely different stuff than the main carapace. The majority of the armor had started to lose its malleability and was seizing. As the beast moved cracks developed making a thin spiderweb between the patches. It knew just from the grating sensation on its back that it would need to do something sooner than later.

Looking around the low walls that made up the ruins it shifted to a darker and more secluded area. The huntsmen were still watching it from afar and while that normally just made it uncomfortable now it felt vulnerable. The beast knew its own physical strength to be excellent, but feared that it was lame. If the armor was fully compromised or, worse still, it was unable to move there would be little struggle if it was attacked.

Finding a dark spot it sighed before gripping its right forearm with its left hand.

"**Pain."**

**/**

**Three days later. **

**/**

"Ah, girls, I've been expecting you." The prof said, opening the door to his lecture room. Sliding the door open he let the four enter before shutting the door again. The five took seats at the front of the room, the professor pulling a chair out from one of the desks and sitting on it backwards, looking at the collection of four. "I've been informed that you all have a fairly unique situation and need a summary of what's what in second year."

Blake shifted in her seat, uncomfortable. "The texts were delivered to us this morning but… There's a considerable amount of content. Your class… Is about half of it."

"You'd think you wouldn't need to read about what you learn as a normal huntress…" Weiss grumbled under her breath, earning a nod from Yang and a quirked brow from the man. The heiress looked a bit sheepish before continuing. "But I'm sure it's important!"

The instructor laughed heartily before leaning back a bit. "Well, let me introduce myself first of all." The black haired man had a thin beard that reached from above the ears and traced his jawline before reaching a barcode tattoo. The ink ran from the edge of the chin up to the edge of his lip, the bars fairly uniform in width but varying in length. His skin was about the same tone as Fox's, Ruby noticed. Definitely not related though as the prof had a much more square jaw. "My name is Deio Arkerhiel, most people call me Doc. D since my last name is a bit hard to pronounce."

"So…" Deio said, lifting a hand with fingers spread. "I'll be honest with you," he looked to Ruby, Weiss, Yang, and black in turn. "applied theory is a huge topic space. Depending on how you count it there are between three and five subjects that are covered in the first two semesters. History and Synergetic theory are the majority but there's geography and some sociology involved…" He trailed off.

"_Why _are they all in the same course?" Yang asked, incredulous. "We already have those courses, why would we need to take them twice?"

"Tradition more than anything." He said, the corner of his lips curling up. "Applied Theory is supposed to be where the subjects meet and interact more fully. It usually covers the subjects in less depth but asks you to look at events or occurrences with a critical eye. The theory of learning the theory – which does make it sound even more obtuse than it is—is that it helps unify the other studies."

"Does it work?"

Seeing the man kind of shrug Ruby giggled. "That… Isn't very convincing."

"Some people do better with it than others. It's not a very difficult course and the minimum attendance along with the required assignments aren't very heavy." He stood and walked to his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a thick stack of paper. Pulling the first dozen pages or so up and off he walked back and held it up for them to see. "What you _need_ to know for the next semester. I have a digital copy I can send you so you don't need to lug this around."

Handing it to Blake, who seemed the most interested in the words, he continued. "The texts are probably still worth a look but in the interest of time those 60 pages are all you need to cover." Reaching over to his table he picked up a scrap of paper, scribbling on the front. "My office hours aren't on the sheet so I'll give you this… I'm still on rotation for the local enforcement so I'm not always available by mail, but if its outside my hours it is worth taking a stab."

"Thanks Doc. D!" Ruby said cheerfully, standing up. She hesitated in leaving as the rest of her team started to exit. "Uhm. What part of enforcement are you on?"

"Ah, I lead one of one of the SWAT detachments. The one for outside Vale city proper, Qrow Branwen leads the one for the city itself." He shifted slightly on his feet to glance out one of the windows. "It's not very often we get called, but when we are it's because some kids decided to poke around Mountain Glenn and have attracted the attention of the Goliaths. It's good side work for a Huntsman." He pulled his wallet out of a back pocket on his slacks and showed her his ID and badge, the two affixed to the front of the leather.

Ruby opened her mouth and paused for a moment. She would normally be genuinely interested in the armory of Vale, and she knew she would sound excited, but she didn't want to sound too excited. If she was then they might be a bit suspicious, and she didn't want to be suspicious.

_But if I wasn't then they'd suspect something. I'm not a weapon nut but it's not exactly a secret that I am a bit excited by-_

"Ruby, what are you doing?" Yang called from the doorway as her younger sister stood there in front of the prof, a puzzled look on her fact which could be best described as 'eyebrows fighting for dominance'. "We don't have long to get lunch before heading to Ozpin's office. You can ask him about guns later!"

"Eh? Yeah." Ruby said, slightly defeated as she stepped away from the prof and walked back to her teammates. Clenching her teeth slightly she relaxed when she resolved to ask the man later after coming back under the pretense of needing help with the work. She didn't want to deceive her team, and she wasn't, but she needed to find something out for herself.

**/**

_We're divided? _Jaune thought as he looked between his teammates. He and Pyrrha were seated on one side of a booth while Nora and Ren sat on the other side. The four had barely touched their food (Nora notwithstanding, who was plowing through her meal of veal with zeal), each of them thinking about the announcement that their best friends had made over breakfast.

They were actually going to do it.

Well, not JNPR, but Ruby and the rest had made it clear that they were going to be taking their chances and going into second year. Jaune had been trying to decide whether or not it was actually a surprising development or not. 3 days after they had been given the ultimatum about the Grimm's fate team JNPR had received a message in their joint inbox saying, effectively, 'we're doing it, you had better come-with'.

That message had started a short but heated argument in the dorm room which they had decided could wait until later. The breakdown was basically that Jaune was uncertain, Pyrrha was wholly against, and Nora was critical of leaving their friends alone.

It was quite a sight to see Nora getting riled up, even more so while combating Pyrrha in a war of wills. When the room got too cold Ren stepped in, but until then it had been a bit touch-and-go.

Taking a long sip from his soda he decided that as team leader he should start the discussion and try to keep it on track. He looked across the table to Ren, who caught the gaze and nodded slightly to show his support. Taking a deep breath the blonde made his opening move.

"So…" He began, taking his glass into his hands and rotating it so that the ice cubes sat in place while the rim moved. "_I_ think that the first question we need to answer is whether or not…" Jaune's jaw set before he made a face. "The general is right."

Nora and Pyrrha shared a glance before nodding for Jaune to continue. Not really having a follow up Jaune was forced to leave an awkward momentary pause. He was rarely gripped with envy for the drama that team RWBY has suffered through but he had to admit that it has given them some strengths they, and more specifically he, didn't have. The problems of peace, he almost chuckled to himself.

"Well," he nodded to Pyrrha, "you are worried about what the Grimm might do-"

When an increasing amount of murmuring around the students reached their ears they tensed slightly. Out of the corner of their eyes they could see they critical glances being tossed their way by the other patrons. One or two uttered things under their breath with obvious malice.

Shifting slightly in their seats they remained silent for a few minutes while they waited for the icy atmosphere to thaw. They had thought that there would be some tension after the Grimm rampaged through the streets, but not this sort of hostility. The Beowolf had hardly caused any damage, but it had caused some serious doubt in the populace around whether or not their institutions could protect them. For all they knew a single rogue Beowolf was able to pierce through the entire Kingdom mostly unopposed.

The 'net and news was filled with stories and theories of how it all came to pass… Even so, Jaune hadn't seen anything _hostile_. Didn't they trust the hunstmen?

When the noise there returned to normal Jaune continued, making sure to avoid the word 'grimm'.

"Pyrrha, you are worried that _it_ might be dangerous, and because of that you doubt that what our friends are doing makes any sense, right?"

The Gladiator curled her lips, making it clear that she thought that was an over-simplification. She nodded anyways.

"And Nora, you think we should trust our friends' judgement since they're our friends?"

A pleased nod from the other teammate. Pyrrha for her part remained silent even though she looked like she wanted to argue. Jaune looked at her and she sighed. "Alright, we'll argue with them. I'm sorry for being a _bit_ obtuse, Nora."

"Apology accepted."

**/**

"_Ugh._" Emerald Sustrai said as she took a step back from Mercury. The man was covered in soot, black dust coating his upper shoulders and marking his grimacing face. "The hell have you been? Cinder has been trying to contact you for half an hour."

"Tell it to the thugs that broke into the East Side." Mercury countered as he pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto the old chair that sat behind the executive desk. They had a temporary shelter in an old Office Building outside the agriculture district for their more covert operations, and were making quite a bit of use of it in the recent days. "I was trying to get in contact with some of those guys Adam said were going to be 'useful'. Someone crashed the meeting place and scared them off."

Emerald chucked and Mercury turned to glare at her, his own wounded ego riling at the ridicule. The woman shrugged off the daggers and shrugged, a haughty look in her eyes. "Since Cinder needs a report you can wait here for her. I'll see if I can shake some information out of Junior… He's been a bit too _quiet_ recently."

"As if he knows anything." He grumbled, pulling his scroll out from the rear pockets of his pants and selecting Cinder's name from the contacts. It was black-framed, obviously different from the ones handed out to the students, and held all the contacts the trio needed for their 'extracurricular activities'. "I'm back 'home'."

A short message was received as a reply, and he grumbled again. Looking up he saw that Sustrai had already left.

She walked the long way to the bus stop that lead into the city proper, not worried about the time. The Club was never open during the day, and more often than not when the Club wasn't open Junior was unavailable. Only after the evening crept across the sky and turned day to night did the doors fully open. If she was lucky, however, she would walk in right before the public started wandering in.

It was a short ride into the central square and then another stint on foot to the transit exchange. She only got off the bus before the exchange because she wanted to walk alongside the reconstruction going on downtown. The Trio had been preoccupied when the grimm had been cutting its way across the city but most definitely had seen the results. It was easy to see which side had caused what damage, given the fact that from the snippets of vids on the net she had seen the beowolf hadn't been carrying a gun. Or driving a Paladin.

It was nice to have the tension though. They had heard through the vine that while the government was being quiet about things they were particularly sore about the fact that a foreign military had effectively cut a path through their city without letting the authorities know what was up. 'Automated Defense Systems' was the claim that Atlas was making, supposedly.

Cinder didn't care about that, so much as the fact that Atlas had been forced out of the city in the past three days with their military now sitting mostly on the edges of the Kingdom. A bit more risky for their hideout but when things were actually happening… The response time was so slow that they were making progress by leaps and bounds.

Except for Mercury.

Somehow, the guy kept getting his meetings messed up. He was the one who was supposed to be brokering the deal with the Fang through Adam, but each time a face-to-face deal was supposed to happen someone would rat. It was starting to become a problem.

Junior, despite being an oaf of a man, had information that nobody else did. Cinder seemed to know why but Emerald didn't, making her a bit suspicious of the Club owner. Oh well, if the man was useless Cinder would have dealt with him.

Stepping onto the next bus she took a seat near the front and kept her eyes focused out the side of the vehicle and at the opposite side of the street. She didn't see Ruby Rose seated half way down the bus, nor the bald woman in combat fatigues seated at the very end with a grin in her eyes.

**/**

**The Broken Hand**

**and mirrored youth,**

**the innocent hand,**

**and bitter truth.**

**Face the bear and follow fate,**

**hurry now, you're not too late,**

**break the facet, fan the flame,**

**burn the flag, crack the tooth,**

**you're coming now to simple truth,**

**come now see where corpses lay,**

**you'd be a dead woman now,**

**If Not For Today. **

**/**

**AN: **Starting up a few different lines of plot now that the most recent set is done. The next two 'Weeks' in the story will involve mainly RWBY, JNPR, and our friendly neighbourhood infiltrators. Thanks for the patience with this chapter!


End file.
